oment. Then:

"You would be wiser to forget him," he said. "He will never come back."

"I shall never forget him," said Betty almost fiercely.

He looked at her gravely.

"You mean to waste the rest of your life waiting for him?" he asked.

Her hands gripped each other suddenly.

"You call it waste?" she said.

"It is waste," he made answer, "sheer, damnable waste. The boy was mad
enough to sacrifice his own career--everything that he had--but it is
downright infernal that you should be sacrificed too. Why should you pay
the penalty for his madness? He was probably killed long ago, and even
if not--even if he lived and came back--you would probably ask yourself
if you had ever met him before."

"Oh, no!" Betty said. "No!"

She turned and looked out to the water that gleamed so peacefully in the
moonlight.

"Do you know," she said, her voice very low, scarcely more than a
whisper, "he asked me to marry him--five years ago--just before he went.
It was my first proposal. I was very young, not eighteen. And--and it
frightened me. I really don't know why. And so I refused. He said he
would ask me again when I was older, when I had come out. I remember
being rather relieved when he went away. It wasn't till afterwards, when
I came to see the world and people, that I realized that he was more to
me than any one else. He--he was wonderfully fascinating, don't you
think? So strong, so eager, so full of life! I have never seen any one
quite like him." She leaned her hands suddenly against a projecting
stone buttress and bowed her head upon them. "And I--refused him!" she
said.

The low voice went out in a faint sob, and the man's hands clenched. The
next instant he had crossed the space that divided him from the slender
figure in its white draperies that drooped against the wall.

He bent down to her.

"Betty, Betty," he said, "you're crying for the moon, child. Don't!"

She turned, and with a slight, confiding movement slid out a trembling
hand.

"I have never told anyone but you," she said.

He clasped the quivering fingers very closely.

"I would sell my soul to see you happy," he said. "But, my dear Betty,
happiness doesn't lie in that direction. You are sacrificing substance
to shadow. Won't you see it before it's too late, before the lean years
come?" He paused a moment, seeming to restrain himself. Then, "I've
never told you before," he said, his voice very low, deeply tender. "I
hardly dare to tell y