ue eyes. He did not touch the tips of my
fingers as he stood there very near me. From the look of pain on his
face I knew that I had misunderstood, somehow.

"Kleine, I see that you know me not," he said, in German, and the saying
it was as tender as is a mother when she reproves a child that she
loves. "This fight against the world, those years of unhappiness and
misery, they have made you suspicious and lacking in trust, is it not
so? You do not yet know the perfect love that casts out all doubt. Dawn,
I ask you in the name of all that is reasoning, and for the sake of your
happiness and mine, to divorce this man Peter Orme--this man who for
almost ten years has not been your husband--who never can be your
husband. I ask you to do something which will bring suffering to no one,
and which will mean happiness to many. Let me make you happy--you were
born to be happy--you who can laugh like a girl in spite of your woman's
sorrows--"

But I sank into a chair and hid my face in my hands so that I might be
spared the beauty and the tenderness of his eyes. I tried to think
of all the sane and commonplace things in life. Somewhere in my inner
consciousness a cool little voice was saying, over and over again:

"Now, Dawn, careful! You've come to the crossroads at last. Right or
left? Choose! Now, Dawn, careful!" and the rest of it all over again.

When I lifted my face from my hands at last it was to meet the
tenderness of Von Gerhard's gaze with scarcely a tremor.

"You ought to know," I said, very slowly and evenly, "that a divorce,
under these circumstances, is almost impossible, even if I wished to do
what you suggest. There are certain state laws--"

An exclamation of impatience broke from him. "Laws! In some states, yes.
In others, no. It is a mere technicality--a trifle! There is about it a
bit of that which you call red tape. It amounts to nothing--to that!" He
snapped his fingers. "A few months' residence in another state, perhaps.
These American laws, they are made to break."

"Yes; you are quite right," I said, and I knew in my heart that the
cool, insistent little voice within had not spoken in vain. "But
there are other laws--laws of honor and decency, and right living and
conscience--that cannot be broken with such ease. I cannot marry you. I
have a husband."

"You can call that unfortunate wretch your husband! He does not know
that he has a wife. He will not know that he has lost a wife. Come,
Dawn--sma