f anger against Blossom because she was to blame for it
all--because he had ever seen her, because he had ever desired her,
because he had ever committed the supreme folly of marrying her, and,
most of all, because she had, in her indiscretion, betrayed him to
Molly--he added with the cruelty which is possible sometimes to generous
and kindly natures--"It was a mistake, of course. I am ready to do
anything in my power for her happiness, but it wouldn't be for her
happiness for us to start living together."

Blossom raised her face from Molly's bosom, and the strong sunlight
shining through the coloured leaves, showed the blanched look of her
skin and the fine lines chiselled by tears around her eyes. Encircling
her mouth, which Gay had once described as looking "as though it
would melt if you kissed it," there was now a heavy blue shadow which
detracted from the beauty of her still red and voluptuous lips. In many
ways she was finer, larger, nobler than when he had first met her--for
experience, which had blighted her physical loveliness, appeared, also,
to have increased the dignity and quietness of her soul. Had Gay been
able to see her soul it would probably have moved him, for he was easily
stirred by the thing that was beneath the eyes. But it was impossible to
present a woman's soul to him as a concrete image.

"I don't want to live with him--I don't want anything from him,"
responded Blossom, with pride. "I don't want anything from him ever
again," she repeated, and putting Molly's arms away from her, she turned
and moved slowly down the Haunt's Walk toward the Poplar Spring.

"I couldn't help loving you, could I, Molly?" he asked in a low voice.

Her face was pale and stern when she answered.

"And you couldn't help loving Blossom last year, I suppose?"

"If I could have helped, do you think I should have done it? You don't
understand such things, Molly."

"No, I don't understand them. When love has to cloak cruelty and
faithlessness, I can't see that it's any better than the thing it
excuses."

"But all love isn't alike. I don't love you in the least as I loved
Blossom. That was a mere impulse, and incident."

"But how was Blossom to know that? and how am I?"

"One can't explain it to a woman. They're not made of flesh and blood as
men are."

"They've had to drill their flesh and blood," she replied, stern rather
than scornful.

"I might have known you'd be hard, Molly."

When she spoke again he