on her. "But why can't we be friends--why not, when I've
repented in dust and ashes? Isn't it hard that you should condemn me to
suffer for the falseness, the treachery of others? I was punished enough
at the time--is there to be no respite for me?"

"I should have thought you had found complete respite in the
reconciliation which was effected at my expense," Lily began, with
renewed impatience; but he broke in imploringly: "Don't put it in that
way--when that's been the worst of my punishment. My God! what could I
do--wasn't I powerless? You were singled out as a sacrifice: any word I
might have said would have been turned against you----"

"I have told you I don't blame you; all I ask you to understand is that,
after the use Bertha chose to make of me--after all that her behaviour
has since implied--it's impossible that you and I should meet."

He continued to stand before her, in his dogged weakness. "Is it--need it
be? Mightn't there be circumstances----?" he checked himself, slashing at
the wayside weeds in a wider radius. Then he began again: "Miss Bart,
listen--give me a minute. If we're not to meet again, at least let me
have a hearing now. You say we can't be friends after--after what has
happened. But can't I at least appeal to your pity? Can't I move you if I
ask you to think of me as a prisoner--a prisoner you alone can set free?"

Lily's inward start betrayed itself in a quick blush: was it possible
that this was really the sense of Carry Fisher's adumbrations?

"I can't see how I can possibly be of any help to you," she murmured,
drawing back a little from the mounting excitement of his look.

Her tone seemed to sober him, as it had so often done in his stormiest
moments. The stubborn lines of his face relaxed, and he said, with an
abrupt drop to docility: "You WOULD see, if you'd be as merciful as you
used to be: and heaven knows I've never needed it more!"

She paused a moment, moved in spite of herself by this reminder of her
influence over him. Her fibres had been softened by suffering, and the
sudden glimpse into his mocked and broken life disarmed her contempt for
his weakness.

"I am very sorry for you--I would help you willingly; but you must have
other friends, other advisers."

"I never had a friend like you," he answered simply. "And besides--can't
you see?--you're the only person"--his voice dropped to a whisper--"the
only person who knows."

Again she felt her colour change; again h