u," she said, as white as death.

He caught his breath sharply and straightened out, passing one hand
across his eyes. When she saw his face again in the dim light it was
ghastly.

"There was a woman," he said, "for whom I was once responsible." He
spoke wearily, head bent, resting the weight of one arm on the table
against which she leaned. "Do you understand?" he asked.

"Yes. You mean--Mrs. Ruthven."

"I mean--her. Afterward--when matters had altered--I came--home."

He raised his head and looked about him in the darkness.

"Came home," he repeated, "no longer a man; the shadow of a man, with no
hope, no outlook, no right to hope."

He leaned heavily on the table, his arm rigid, looking down at the floor
as he spoke.

"No right to hope. Others told me that I still possessed that right. I
knew they were wrong; I do not mean that they persuaded me--I persuaded
myself that, after all, perhaps my right to hope remained to me. I
persuaded myself that I might be, after all, the substance, not the
shadow."

He looked up at her:

"And so I dared to love you."

She gazed at him, scarcely breathing.

"Then," he said, "came the awakening. My dream had ended."

She waited, the lace on her breast scarce stirring, so still she stood,
so pitifully still.

"Such responsibility cannot die while those live who undertook it. I
believed it until I desired to believe it no longer. But a man's
self-persuasion cannot alter such laws--nor can human laws confirm or
nullify them, nor can a great religion do more than admit their truth,
basing its creed upon such laws. . . . No man can put asunder, no laws
of man undo the burden. . . . And, to my shame and disgrace, I have had
to relearn this after offering you a love I had no right to offer--a
life which is not my own to give."

He took one step toward her, and his voice fell so low that she could
just hear him:

"She has lost her mind, and the case is hopeless. Those to whom the laws
of the land have given care of her turned on her, threatened her with
disgrace. And when one friend of hers halted this miserable conspiracy,
her malady came swiftly upon her, and suddenly she found herself
helpless, penniless, abandoned, her mind already clouded, and clouding
faster! . . . Eileen, was there then the shadow of a doubt as to the
responsibility? Because a man's son was named in the parable, does the
lesson end there--and are there no others as prodigal--no other bonds
that ho