ou."

"Why?"

"You make me say it!" she cried. "Well, Robert, I--I don't love you."

"I'm not asking you to love me!" he rejoined, almost savagely. "I only
ask you--"

"Listen!" she interrupted, placing a hand on his arm. "That's not
all."

"You mean--"

She stopped him with a pressure on his arm.

"Once, not knowing, I almost consented," she went on. "But something
checked me--held me back. You remember how restless I was--how
troubled. You would have laughed at me if I had told you. But
something seemed to be calling me--a voice from a long distance. I
laughed at myself for a foolish girl--at first. I said it was nerves,
and I fought against it. And it was then that I came nearest to saying
yes to you, thinking that I was indeed foolish in holding back. I
liked you. I've always liked you, Robert. You'd been such a splendid
friend, and I was grateful. I wanted to repay you--"

She stopped suddenly, and a flush mounted swiftly into her pale
cheeks. Repay! The word recalled sharply to her, acutely and
painfully, all that Haig had said about paying her. Were they, then,
in the same dreadful situation, she and Haig, with debts they could
never pay? For the first time some sense of the terrible finality of
his decision struck in upon her secret hopes.

"Don't talk of that!" Robert was saying, seizing the moment of
silence. "I never--"

"But always, when I was about to yield--I couldn't. I didn't know why
then. But now I do."

"You mean--Haig?" he asked hoarsely.

"Yes."

"You don't--" He could not bring himself to speak the word.

"Yes, Robert. I love him."

It took all the courage she possessed. But she owed it to him and to
herself.

"I don't believe it!" he blurted out. "I won't believe it! You are not
yourself, Marion. You are worn out. You have been fascinated. He's
strange--different--new to you. It's your imagination, not your heart,
that's been--won. He's led you on by--"

"No!" she broke in. "You're quite wrong. It's not his fault at all. He
doesn't love me."

"Of course not. I know that kind of fellow. You didn't need to leave
New York to find plenty like him. He only wants to--"

"Robert!" she cried warningly.

"Then what--"

"He hates me, I think," she replied sadly.

"Then why in the world do you--" He was floundering. "What do you know
about him, anyhow? Who is he? Where did he come from?"

That sounded so much like Seth Huntington that she smiled, thinking of
the picture that