of the hand, without looking at him, she made
him resume the seat from which he was again about to spring.

"No, no. You don't understand. He's been superb. He's still superb. He
would never have told me at all if he hadn't seen--"

She stopped with a little gasp.

"Yes? If he hadn't seen--what?"

"That I--that I--I care--for some one else."

"Oh! Well, of course, that does make a difference."

He fell back into the depths of his chair, his fingers drumming on the
table beside which he sat. Minutes passed before he spoke again. He got
the words out jerkily, huskily, with dry throat.

"Some one--in England?"

"No--here."

During the next few minutes of silence he pulled himself imperceptibly
forward, till his elbows rested on his knees, while he peered up into
the face of which he could still see nothing but the profile.

"Is he--is he--coming to Stoughton?"

"He's _going_ to Stoughton. He's been there--already."

If there was silence again it was because he dared not frame the words
that were on his tongue.

"It isn't--it can't be--?"

Without moving otherwise, she turned her head so that her eyes looked
into his obliquely. She nodded. She could utter no more than the
briefest syllables. "Yes. It is."

His lips were parched, but he still forced himself to speak. "Is that
true?--or are you saying it because--because I put up the money?"

She gathered all her strength together. "If you hadn't put up the money,
I might never have known that it was true; but it _is_ true. I think it
was true before that--long ago--when you offered me so much--so
_much!_--that I didn't know how to take it--and I didn't answer you. I
can't tell. I can't tell when it began--but it seems to me very far
back--"

Still bending forward, he covered his eyes with his left hand, raising
his right in a blind, groping movement in her direction. She took it in
both her own, clasping it to her breast, as she went on:

"I see now--yes, I think I see quite clearly--that that's why I
struggled against your help, in the first place.... If it had been
anybody else I should probably have taken it at once.... You must have
thought me very foolish.... I suppose I was.... My only excuse is that
it was something like--like revolt--first against the wrong we had been
doing, and then against the great, sublime thing that was coming up out
of the darkness to conquer me.... That's the way I felt.... I was
afraid.... I wanted something smaller--s