scarcely speak. "Is--friendship not enough, Mr. Berkley?"

"It is too late for friendship. You know it."

"That cannot be."

"Why, Ailsa?"

"Because it is friendship--mistaken friendship that moves you now
in every word you say." She raised her candid gaze. "Is there no
end to your self-murder? Do you still wish to slay yourself before
my very eyes?"

"I tell you that there is nothing good left living in me:

"And if it were true; did you never hear of a resurrection?"

"I--warn you!"

"I hear your warning."

"You dare let me love you?"

Dry-lipped, voices half stifled by their mounting emotion, they
stood closely confronted, paling under the effort of self-mastery.
And his was giving way, threatening hers with every breath.

Suddenly in his altered face she saw what frightened her, and her
hand suddenly closed in his; but he held it imprisoned.

"Answer me, Ailsa!"

"Please--" she said--"if you will let me go--I will answer--you----"

"What?"

"What you--ask."

Her breath was coming faster; her face, now white as a flower, now
flushed, swam before him. Through the surging passion enveloping
him he heard her voice as at a distance:

"If you will--let me go--I can tell you----"

"Tell me now!"

"Not--this way. . . . How can you care for me if----

"I warned you, Ailsa! I told you that I am unfit to love you. No
woman could ever marry _me_! No woman could even love me if she
knew what I am! You understood that. I told you. And now--good
God!--I'm telling you I love you--I can't let you go!--your
hands:--the sweetness of them--the----"

"I--oh, it must not be--this way----"

"It _is_ this way!"

"I know--but please try to help.--I--I am not afraid to--love
you------"

Her slender figure trembled against him; the warmth of her set him
afire. There was a scent of tears in her breath--a fragrance as
her body relaxed, yielded, embraced; her hands, her lids, her:
hair, her mouth, all his now, for the taking, as he took her into
his arms. But he only stared down at what lay there; and,
trembling, breathless, her eyes unclosed and she looked up blindly
into his flushed face.

"Because I--love you," she sighed, "I believe in all that--that I
have--never--seen--in you."

He looked back into her eyes, steadily:

"I am going mad over you, Ailsa. There is only destruction for you
in that madness. . . . Shall I let you go?"

"W-what?"

But the white passion in his face was enou