ll of poise and strength and dignity
was now supremely haggard. When he spoke he spoke in uttermost
despair--huskily, chokingly, yet with an effort at control.

"Do you know what this is going to do to me?" he asked, holding out
the proof-sheets.

"Yes," she said.

"It is going to ruin me--reputation, fortune, future! Everything!"

She did not answer him.

"Yes, that is going to be the result," he continued in his slow, husky
voice. "Only one thing can save me."

"And that?"

He stared at her for a moment with wildly burning eyes. Then he wet
his dry lips.

"That is for you to countermand this extra."

"You ask me to do that?"

"It is my only chance. I do."

"I believe you are out of your mind!" she cried.

"I believe I am!" he said hoarsely.

"Think just a moment, and you will see that what you ask is quite
impossible. Just think a moment."

He was silent for a time. A tremor ran through him, his body
stiffened.

"No, I do not ask it," he said. "I am not trying to excuse myself now,
but when a thing falls so unexpectedly, so suddenly----" A choking at
the throat stopped him. "If I have seemed to whimper, I take it back.
You have beaten me, Katherine. But I hope I can take defeat like a
man."

She did not answer.

They continued gazing at one another. In the silence of the great
house they could hear each other's agitated breathing. Into his dark
face, now turned so gray, there crept a strange, drawn look--a look
that sent a tingling through all her body.

"What is it?" she asked.

"To think," he exclaimed in a low, far-away voice, almost to himself,
"that I have lost everything through you! Through you, through whom I
might have gained everything!"

"Gained everything? Through me?" she repeated. "How?"

"I am sure I would have kept out of such things--as this--if, five
years ago, you had said 'yes' instead of 'no'."

"Said yes?" she breathed.

"I think you would have kept me in the straight road. For I would not
have dared to fall below your standards. For I"--he drew a deep,
convulsive breath--"for I loved you, Katherine, better than anything
in all the world!"

She trembled at the intensity of his voice.

"You loved me--like that?"

"Yes. And since I have lost you, and lost everything, there is perhaps
no harm in my telling you something else. Only on that one night did I
open my lips about love to you--but I have loved you through all the
years since then. And ... and I still lo