the stars seemed to
hang from threads of gold and silver as if they were upheld by an actual
tangible roof. He knew that his hour had come, but he obeyed the impulse
which controlled him with an infinite self-accusation.

'Madge,' he said, rolling over where he lay and stretching out his hand
towards her. It fell upon her own, and she made no motion to evade
him. It was the first caress he had ever offered her, and her tacit
acceptance of it hurried him into passion. 'Madge,' he said again; 'dear
little Madge!'

She glanced at him for an instant only, and in the moonlight her eyes
glinted with sudden tears.

'I have no right,' he said, 'to speak to you like this. I have had no
right to claim your companionship as I have done since we first began to
know each other.'

She was quite silent; but under his light caress he felt her hand
tremble, and she glanced at him once more and looked away again.

'I have not had a happy life,' he went on, 'but that ought to dispose me
to do what I can to keep unhappiness out of the lives of other people.
If I tell you that I am very conscious of having deceived you, of having
left you in the dark about myself in respect to things you have a right
to know, what shall you say to me? What will you think of me?'

Again she turned to look at him, and this time her glance rested on him,
but still she made no answer.

Paul withdrew his hand, sat upright, and began mechanically to charge
his pipe and to smoke.

'I met an utterly worthless woman many years ago,' he began, after a
long pause, 'and I threw my life away upon her. We were married, and
she is still alive. She is likely to live for many years to come; and,
indeed, there is no probability of escape from her. It is not likely
that she and I will ever see each other any more; but I am legally bound
to her so long as she shall live. I ought to have told you this months
ago.'

He rose and began to pace up and down the sands before her. He looked up
at her from time to time, and her eyes followed him as he moved. Not
a sound escaped her lips, but her fast-flowing tears glittered on her
cheeks like rain.

'I should have told you,' he cried, writhing between self-accusation and
self-excuse, 'but I had not the courage to put an end to a time which
has been so lull of sweetness, so full of a mad kind of hope which I
should never have admitted to my heart I know,' he went on, pausing
desperately before her, 'what must be in your min