n of anyone she
had ever met.

"No, no," she said, drawing away from hm. "You do not know what you are
saying. It cannot be."

"I know that our lives can never be complete while they run apart," he
answered from the depths of his emotion. "I know that you need me as
much as I need you--and because we are meant for each other: because God
made us for each other."

"You do not know what you are saying," she replied, moving on briskly in
the direction of home. "You happen to be drawn towards me now--by force
of propinquity, perhaps; or because you were good enough to worry about
me during my exile--"

"As though I could help it," he cried; "O, God, those days and nights of
uncertainty!"

"But when you go home and think this over, you will thank me," she went
on. "We are not fitted for each other. We are not meant for each other.
I am what you call an advanced woman--your women-folks go farther and
call me strong-minded. I have been brought up that way, and all my
associations in life have developed that spirit within me. You have
always looked upon women as inferior beings--Oh, yes, you have. You,
too, were brought up that way. Even now you would tell me I am an
exceptional woman--if I let you."

"You are," interrupted Allingham. "By Heaven, you are."

"But if I were to marry you," she pursued, still talking to the young
man she had seen that morning a year ago in the Municipal League rooms,
"you would soon resent my attitude towards life; you would want to
restrict my life, to surround me with invisible limitations, such as
you believe all femininity should be hedged with. I couldn't endure it.
I never had to, and I couldn't submit to being estimated every day and
in the intimacy of home life--according to the old-fashioned standards
that narrow a woman's heart and mind until they hold nothing but
pettiness and smallness and meanness of spirit. Because I couldn't, I
should make you the most unhappy of men."

"But, Gertrude, hear me," he pleaded. "The past year has been a
revelation. You have been a revelation to me."

"Yes, I," she retorted. "Not the eternal principles of manhood and
womanhood, walking together--different and yet alike--only I--"

"I swear to you," he cried, "I have come to see that a woman may be all
womanly and yet be as much a power and a worker in the world as her
husband; that her place is where she can be of the greatest help to
humanity."

"No," said Gertrude firmly, for his expressi