een invisible to him had he been
less interested persuaded him that love lay ready for him, and after all
the follies of his slaveries here and there, he persuaded himself that
if he could but accept it, it was of a kind to atone for all that had
gone before. And why, he asked himself, if this were true, should he
stand for ever in loneliness? It was in him to be constant if only truth
were met with truth. He could have been faithful to Claudia. He could
have been faithful to Annette. He could have been faithful to Gertrude.
And though no man whose sense of the humour of life does not leave him
wholly blind to the comedy of his own existence could fail to see the
bitter jest that lay here against himself, he urged the point seriously.
He _had_ been true in each case until faith had grown into blind folly,
and bare respect for an old idol had become impossible. The one crime of
his life had been acted against himself. He had believed Annette, and in
the mere feebleness of acquiescence he had hung a weight about his neck
which he was doomed to carry as long as her life should last.

And now, had he the right to redress the wrong he had inflicted upon
himself? Feeble always, always a drifter, a good deal of a coward in his
way of shrinking from avoidable pain, but never deliberately cruel or
selfish. And now, was he to do a deliberately cruel and selfish thing?
Or was as much mischief as might well be done wrought already?

For months had gone by, and the drifting policy had brought him plainly
to the question, Was this quiet, sweet little girl in love with him?
No blame to her if it were so. He had signalled her from the first for
attention and companionship, and she knew nothing of his history. She
had no guess as to the fatal bond which held him. Every day he knew her
better. Her mind and heart opened out before him like twin flowers, full
of purity and sweet odour.

She was courage incarnate, and her hatred of cruelty was a passion. A
hulking blackguard of a teamster was cruelly flogging an overladen horse
one day, and Madge, at the risk of her life, was in amongst the traffic
of the street in a flash, and stood between the beast and his dumb
victim voiceless and pale with rage, her little figure at its height
and her eyes blazing. Paul's chance presence and the neighbourhood of
a policeman were probably answerable for the peaceful solution of this
episode, for the girl had snatched the whip from the bully's hand, and