seat, with a high back, near the pillar; she sank
down upon it.

"What you wish is to have me leave you--tire you and vex you no more.
But I cannot go quite yet. I tell you that I will accept Lanse, as well
as I can; I promise never again to open my lips as I did that last day;
and still you are going to shut your door in my face, and keep it shut;
and you assure me it is forever. This is unreasonable--a woman's
unreason. Why shouldn't I come occasionally?--what are you afraid of?
You will be surrounded by all your safeguards, your husband at the head.
But your own will is a safeguard no human power could break; you are
unassailable, taken quite by yourself, Mrs. Lansing Harold."

She did not look up.

"And you wouldn't be able, either, to carry it out--any such system of
blockade," he went on. "Aunt Katrina would send for me; leaving that
aside, Lanse himself would send; Lanse doesn't care a straw what my real
opinion of him may be, so long as he can get some talk, some
entertainment out of me, and it will be more than ever so now that he is
permanently laid up. And if you should tell him of my avowal even, what
would he say? 'Of course you know how to take rubbish of that
sort'--that is what he would say! And he would laugh delightedly to
think of _my_ being caught."

Still she did not move.

He walked off a few paces, then came back. "And here, again, Margaret,
even if you should be able to influence both Aunt Katrina and Lanse
against me, do you think that would prevent my seeing you--I don't mean
constantly, of course, but occasionally? Do you suppose I should obey
your rules--even your wishes? Not the least in the world! I should
always see you, now and then, in some way. I shouldn't make myself a
public annoyance; but--I give you warning--I shall never lose sight of
you as long as I breathe, as long as I am alive."

She stirred at last, she looked up at him.

"Yes, I see you are frightened; you wish to go--escape, go back to the
house and shut yourself up out of my reach, as you usually do. But this
time I'm merciless, I feel that it's my last chance; you cannot go (you
needn't try to pass me) until you have told me why it is that you wish
not to see me again, never again, in spite of the safety, the absolute
unapproachableness of your position."

She sat there, her eyes on his hard, insistent face.

"Why do you make me more wretched than I am?" she asked.

"Because I can't help it! There is a reason,