ugh me you left Cornbridge, you shall not have to leave this
house. I promise you, swear to you, that I shall not darken these doors
again. Is that enough? Does that content you?"

"Then I shall have at least something at last to thank you for," she
said coldly. And yet, though she spoke coldly, she looked at him and saw
something in his face that made her lip tremble. Yet in no other way did
she betray her feelings, and he, like the man he was, was of course
blind.

It was strange how long they had been left alone, uninterrupted. The
strangeness of it did not occur to him, yet it did to her. She turned to
the door.

"Joan, wait," he pleaded--"wait! One last word! One day I shall hope to
explain to you, then perhaps you will find it in your heart to forgive.
For the blunder that I made in Slotman's office, for the further insult,
if you look on it as such, I ask you to forgive me now. It was the act
of a senseless fool, a mad fool, who had done wrong and tried to do
right, and through his folly made matters worse. To-night perhaps I have
sinned more than ever before in telling you that I love you. But if that
is a sin and past all forgiveness, I glory in it. I take not one word of
it back. I shall trouble you no more, and so"--he paused--"so I say
good-bye."

"Good-bye!" He held out his hand to her, but she looked him full in the
face.

"Good-bye!" she said, and then turned quickly, and in a moment the door
was closed between them.

He did not see her hurry away, her hands pressed against her breast. He
did not see the face, all womanly and sweet, and soft and tender now. He
had only the memory of her brief farewell, the memory of her cold,
steady eyes--nothing else beside.

CHAPTER XIII

THE GENERAL CONFESSES

"My dear, my dear, life is short. I am an old man, and yet looking back
it seems but yesterday since I was a boy beginning life. Climbing the
hill, my dear, climbing the hill; and when the top was gained, when I
stood there in my young manhood, I thought that the world belonged to
me. And then the descent, so easy and so swift. The years seem long when
one is climbing, but they are as weeks when the top is passed and the
descent into the valley begins." He paused. He passed his hand across
his forehead. "I meant to speak of something else, of you, child, of
your life, of love and happiness, and of those things that should be
dear to all us humans."

"I know nothing of love, and of happiness