t, and gave her my confidence and got hers--and assured
myself that you were in good hands. Crossley's tale gave me--a shock.
I came at once."

"Then you didn't abandon me to my fate, as I thought?"

He smiled in his strange way. "I?--when I loved you? Hardly."

"Then you did interest yourself in me because you cared--precisely as I
said," laughed she.

"And I should have given you up if you had succeeded--precisely as I
said," replied he.

"You wished me to fail?"

"I wished you to fail. I did everything I could to help you to
succeed. I even left you absolutely alone, set you in the right
way--the only way in which anyone can win success."

"Yes, you made me throw away the crutches and try to walk."

"It was hard to do that. Those strains are very wearing at my time of
life."

"You never were any younger, and you'll never be any older," laughed
she. "That's your charm--one of them."

"Mildred, do you still care?"

"How did you know?" inquired she mockingly.

"You didn't try to conceal it. I'd not have ventured to say and do the
things I said and did if I hadn't felt that we cared for each other.
But, so long as you were leading that fatuous life and dreaming those
foolish dreams, I knew we could never be happy."

"That is true--oh, SO true," replied she.

"But now--you have tried, and that has made a woman of you. And you
have failed, and that has made you ready to be a wife--to be happy in
the quiet, private ways."

She was silent.

"I can make enough for us both--as much as we will need or want--as
much as you please, if you aren't too extravagant. And I can do it
easily. It's making little sums--a small income--that's hard in this
ridiculous world. Let's marry, go to California or Europe for several
months, then come back here and live like human beings."

She was silent. Block after block they walked along, as if neither had
anything especial in mind, anything worth the trouble of speech.
Finally he said:

"Well?"

"I can't answer--yet," said she. "Not to-day--not till I've thought."

She glanced quickly at him. Over his impassive face, so beautifully
regular and, to her, so fascinating, there passed a quick dark shadow,
and she knew that he was suffering. He laughed quietly, his old
careless, indifferent laugh.

"Oh, yes, you can answer," said he. "You have answered."

She drew in her breath sharply.

"You have refused."

"Why do you say that, Donald?" she pleaded.