Cressy? He shall never come near you."

She shook her head. "No, it isn't that."

He stooped and looked into her face. "Then what keeps you?"

She looked up slowly.

"My honor."

"Your honor!" For a moment her answer seemed to have him by surprise. He
mused, and again it came dreamily back to her that he was looking at
her across a vast difference no will of hers could ever bridge.

"Don't you see what I am?" she murmured. "Can't you imagine where I
stand in this hideous business? It's my trust. I'm on their side; and,
oh, in spite of everything, I can't make myself believe in giving it to
you!"

He pondered this very gravely.

"Yes, I can see how you might feel that way. But is the feeling really
yours? Are you sure they haven't put it on you? Might not my honor do as
well for you, if you were mine?" It struck her she had never connected
him with honor, and he read her thought with a flash of humor.
"Evidently it hasn't occurred to you that I have an honor."

She looked at him sadly. "In spite of everything I'm on the other side.
I belong to them."

"You belong to me." His hand closed on hers. "Mine is the only honor you
have to think of. Can't you trust that I am right? Can't you see it
through my eyes? Can't you make yourself all mine?" His arm was around
her now, holding her fast, but she turned her face away, and his kisses
fell only on her cheek and hair.

"Oh," she cried, "if only I could!"

"Don't you love me?"

"Oh, yes, but that makes me see, all the more, the dreadful difference
between us."

"You silly child, there is no difference, really."

"Ah, yes, you know it as well as I. You were afraid of it, too. All that
long time you were walking around you were wondering whether you dared
to take me."

He denied her steadily, "Never!"

She loved him for that gallant denial, for she knew he had been afraid,
horribly afraid, more afraid than she was now; but that strange quality
of his that gave to a double risk a double zest had set him all the
hotter on this resolution.

He sat for some long moments thoughtfully looking straight before him.
She, glancing at his profile, white and faintly glimmering in the
twilight, thought it looked sharp, absorbed and set. She could see his
great determination growing there in the gloom between them, looming
and overshadowing them both.

"I see," he said at last. "I'll simply have to take you in spite of it."
He turned around to her, and reached his han