the messes that your own folly gets you into. You didn't need to marry,
you know, but you just would do it in spite of anything that any one
could say, and all we could do was to be sorry for it, and sorry for
you when you were unhappy, as we all knew that you would be beforehand.
And that was the one mess that no one could get you out of. Well, then
he died, and you had another show." Jack paused and jarred his cigarette
ash off with his finger-tip. "You know and I know just who there was
waiting there at home, but you elected to turn them all down and come
over here to travel around alone. And that was all right as long as you
stayed alone, but terribly risky when,--well, when that letter was
written in Zurich--"

"Ah," she cried sharply, "then it _was_ from Zurich!"

"Yes, it was from Zurich," he replied indifferently; "and it was
perfectly natural under the circumstances that the letter should have
been written. The letter was straightforward enough, only, of course, it
necessitated Uncle John's sending me over to--"

"But I hadn't known him but three days then," she interrupted.

"That wasn't making any difference to him, evidently. And so I came over
and looked up everything; and I even did more, I came there to Munich
and went off with him on that trip so as to learn just everything that
it was possible to learn, and it all comes to just what I've told you
before: if you want to marry him, you can; if you don't want to marry
him, you needn't; but for Heaven's sake why do you persist in refusing
him if it uses you up so awfully?"

Her mouth quivered and her eyes filled slowly.

"Have you been flirting?" he asked, with a very real kindness veiled in
his voice, "or do you really love him?"

She lifted her wet eyes to his.

"I don't know," she said, with simple sincerity; and after a minute she
added, "But I can't make up my mind to marry just for the sake of
finding out."

Jack whistled softly.

"So that's it!" he said at last.

They remained sitting quietly side by side for two or three minutes, and
then he spoke again; his voice was gentle, but firm and resolved, and
there was a sort of finality about his words which clinched into her
heart like an ice-grip.

"Then the best thing to do is just what we're doing; I know that you
wanted to stay and see more of him, but, feeling as you do, that
wouldn't have been right to him or to yourself either. It seems tough on
you, but you'll get over it in a few