nd shield you--oh, how tenderly I could
care for you, my dear, my dear!"

The strength passed to him, then. Audrey had a clear picture of what
life with him might mean, of his protection, his tenderness. She had
never known it. Suddenly every bit of her called out for his care, his
quiet strength.

"Don't make me sorry for myself." There were tears in her eyes. "Will
you kiss me, Clay? We might have that to remember."

But they were not to have even that, for the taxicab drew up before her
hotel. It was one of the absurd anti-climaxes of life that they should
part with a hand-clasp and her formal "Thank you for a lovely evening."

Audrey was the better actor of the two. She went in as casually as
though she had not put the only happiness of her life away from her.
But Clayton Spencer stood on the pavement, watching her in, and all the
tragedy of the empty years ahead was in his eyes.

CHAPTER XXXV

Left alone in her untidy room after Graham's abrupt departure, Anna
Klein was dazed. She stood where he left her, staring ahead. What had
happened meant only one thing to her, that Graham no longer cared about
her, and, if that was true, she did not care to live.

It never occurred to her that he had done rather a fine thing, or that
he had protected her against herself. She felt no particular shame, save
the shame of rejection. In her small world of the hill, if a man gave a
girl valuable gifts or money there was generally a quid pro quo. If the
girl was unwilling, she did not accept such gifts. If the man wanted
nothing, he did not make them. And men who made love to girls either
wanted to marry them or desired some other relationship with them.

She listened to his retreating footsteps, and then began, automatically
to unbutton her thin white blouse. But with the sound of the engine of
his car below she ran to the window. She leaned out, elbows on the sill,
and watched him go, without a look up at her window.

So that was the end of that!

Then, all at once, she was fiercely angry. He had got her into this
scrape, and now he had left her. He had pretended to love her, and all
the time he had meant to do just this, to let her offer herself so he
might reject her. He had been playing with her. She had lost her home
because of him, had been beaten almost insensible, had been ill for
weeks, and now he had driven away, without even looking back.

She jerked her blouse off, still standing by the window, and whe