s before it is to be drowned.

Then the last position of all, the position that made the whole thing
impossible. She was not innocent! She was not ignorant of the world!
She did know the pitfalls in life--knew the luring dangers that lie
concealed in the hedges of every woman's highway! No, it was not that.
She knew everything--but she knew him to be a gentleman.

There is no more disarming passe in the everlasting duel between a
man and a woman than this appeal--whether it be made intentionally
or not--the appeal to his honour as a gentleman. Up flies the
glittering rapier from his hand, he is weaponless--and at her mercy.
For every man, even more especially when he is not one, would be
thought a gentleman.

Traill, disarmed, defenceless, weighing every possibility, every
intention, was still faced with the unequal balance, her gentle faith
in the best of him dragging down the scale. By the time they had
reached the stairway to his rooms, he had forged his mind to its
decision. This once he would let her come to his rooms--this once,
but never again. He knew his instincts and refused to trust them.
If she thought him a gentleman, she should find him one. That was
owed to her. We give the world its own valuation of us. This is
humanity. It is therefore wisest to think well of a man. Those who
think badly will find themselves surrounded by the impersonation of
their own minds. It is wisest to think well, for even thinking has
its unconscious effects. But say evil of a man, tell him to his face,
without thought of punishment, merely in candid criticism that you
find him ill and, besides giving him a bad name, you will make a dog
of him.

She had said he was a gentleman--bless her heart!

"This staircase is confoundedly dark," he said; "I'll strike a
match."

She waited, heart beating, listening to the scratching of the
match-head against the woodwork. When it flared, he raised it above
his head and strode on before her, grim shadows falling round him,
following him like noiseless ghosts. Sally kept close behind.

"I used to live on the top floor," he said, "until the day before
yesterday; I've moved down now to the first. There's not so much
difference in the rooms, but those four flights of stairs in this
sort of light were a bit too much." He thought of the last woman who
had climbed the stairs with him. All she had said that evening, the
first day he had met Sally, trooped through his mind in slow and vivid
p