and true for
you and me together. For you do care, don't you?"

"What difference does that make?" she whispered. "What difference can it
make? Oh, you mustn't tell me these things, I mustn't listen. I
mustn't."

"But they're terribly, tragically true," Monohan returned. "Look at me,
Stella. Don't turn your face away, dear. I wouldn't do anything that
might bring the least shadow on you. I know the pitiful hopelessness of
it. You're fettered, and there's no apparent loophole to freedom. I know
it's best for me to keep this locked tight in my heart, as something
precious and sorrowful. I never meant to tell you. But the flesh isn't
always equal to the task the spirit imposes."

She did not answer him immediately, for she was struggling for a grip on
herself, fighting back an impulse to lay her head against him and cry
her agony out on his breast. All the resources of will that she
possessed she called upon now to still that tumult of emotion that
racked her. When she did speak, it was in a hard, strained tone. But she
faced the issue squarely, knowing beyond all doubt what she had to face.

"Whether I care or not isn't the question," she said. "I'm neither
little enough nor prudish enough to deny a feeling that's big and clean.
I see no shame in that. I'm afraid of it--if you can understand that.
But that's neither here nor there. I know what I have to do. I married
without love, with my eyes wide open, and I have to pay the price. So
you must never talk to me of love. You mustn't even see me, if it can be
avoided. It's better that way. We can't make over our lives to suit
ourselves--at least I can't. I must play the game according to the only
rules I know. We daren't--we mustn't trifle with this sort of a feeling.
With you--footloose, and all the world before you--it'll die out
presently."

"No," he flared. "I deny that. I'm not an impressionable boy. I know
myself."

He paused, and the grip of his hands on hers tightened till the pain of
it ran to her elbows. Then his fingers relaxed a little.

"Oh, I know," he said haltingly. "I know it's got to be that way. I have
to go my road and leave you to yours. Oh, the blank hopelessness of it,
the useless misery of it. We're made for each other, and we have to grin
and say good-by, go along our separate ways, trying to smile. What a
devilish state of affairs! But I love you, dear, and no matter--I--ah--"

His voice flattened out. His hands released hers, he straighten