can't Jeff!"

"You don't want to."

"Yes, I do! But you don't want me to, as you did then. Do you?" She
stopped abruptly and faced him full. "Tell me, honestly!"

Jeff dropped his bold eyes, and the smile left his handsome mouth.

"You don't," said the girl, "for you know that if you did, I would do
it." She began to walk on again. "It wouldn't be hard for me to forgive
you anything you've done against me--or against yourself; I should care
for you the same--if you were the same person; but you're not the same,
and you know it. I told you then--that time that I didn't want to make
you do what you knew was right, and I never shall try to do it again. I'm
sorry I did it then. I was wrong. And I should be afraid of you if I did
now. Some time you would make me suffer for it, just as you've made me
suffer for making you do then what was right."

It struck Jeff as a very curious fact that Cynthia must always have known
him better than he knew himself in some ways, for he now perceived the
truth and accuracy of her words. He gave her mind credit for the
penetration due her heart; he did not understand that it is through their
love women divine the souls of men. What other witnesses of his character
had slowly and carefully reasoned out from their experience of him she
had known from the beginning, because he was dear to her.

He was silent, and then, with rare gravity, he said, "Cynthia, I believe
you're right," and he never knew how her heart leaped toward him at his
words. "I'm a pretty bad chap, I guess. But I want you to give me another
chance and I'll try not to make you pay for it, either," he added, with a
flicker of his saucy humor.

"I'll give you a chance, then," she said, and she shrank from the hand he
put out toward her. "Go back and tell that girl you're free now, and if
she wants you she can have you."

"Is that what you call a chance?" demanded Jeff, between anger and
injury. For an instant he imagined her deriding him and revenging
herself.

"It's the only one I can give you. She's never tried to make you do what
was right, and you'll never be tempted to hurt her."

"You're pretty rough on me, Cynthy," Jeff protested, almost plaintively.
He asked, more in character: "Ain't you afraid of making me do right,
now?"

"I'm not making you. I don't promise you anything, even if she won't have
you."

"Oh!"

"Did you suppose I didn't mean that you were free? That I would put a lie
in your mouth for yo