obility of soul that had urged her to
that last admission, by way of softening the pangs and penalties she
dealt to him. Would any other woman have confessed as much to the
man who had once despised her, and now found himself in her power?

She went on. "I thought you might like to know it. I've gone far
enough, perhaps; but I'll go farther still. I believe I would give
the world to be able to love you now."

"Frida, if you can go as far as that----"

"I can go no farther. No, Maurice, not one step."

"You can. I believe, even now, I could make you love me."

"No. You see, women in my position, my unfortunate position, want to
be loved for themselves."

"I do love you for yourself. Do you doubt that, too?"

"I do not doubt it. I am quite sure of it. That's where it is. I
know you love me for myself, and so many men have loved me--not for
myself. Do you suppose that doesn't touch me? If anything could make
me love you that would. And since it doesn't----"

The inference was obvious.

"Is it because you can't give up your life?"

"It is--partly. And yet I might do that. I did it once."

"You did, indeed. I can't conceive how you, being you, lived the
life you did----"

"I owed it. It was the price of my freedom."

Her freedom! No wonder that she valued it, if she had paid that
price!

She went on dreamily, as if speaking more to herself than him. "To
have power over your life--to do what you like with it--take it up
or throw it down, to fling it away if that seems the best thing to
do. You're not fit to take up your life if you haven't the strength
to put it down, too."

"Frida, if you were my wife you wouldn't have to put it down. I'm
not asking you to give up the world for me; I'm not even asking you
to give up one day of your life. Your life would be exactly what it
is now--plus one thing. You'll say, 'What can I give you that you
haven't got?' I can give you what you've never had. You don't know
what a man's love is and can be; and you must own that without that
knowledge your experience, even as experience, is not quite as
complete as it might be."

The boat--the boat that was to take him to the shore--was getting
nearer. It was his last chance. And while he staked everything on
that chance, he thought of Frida as he had first seen her, as she
sat tragically at the whist table at Coton Manor, dealing out the
cards with deft and supple fingers.

Now she was dealing out his fate.

He remembered