The little arrow of self-effacement found its mark, and Isabel hesitated. With the enthusiasm of a young devotee she had striven to unsex herself in the singleness of her purpose, but Antrim’s pleading stirred the woman within her, and in that fleeting instant of introspection she saw how frail was the barrier defending her ambition from his love. Honesty, pure and simple--the shame of taking so much where she could give so little--stepped in to save her. “No, not even then, Harry. You deserve the full cup, and I couldn’t be mean enough to offer you the dregs. If I fail, I sha’n’t be worth anybody’s having; and if I succeed--ah, God knows, but I am afraid I should be still less the woman you ought to marry.” “As you will,” he said, and held out his hand. “Let us say ‘Good-bye’ and have it over with.” She put her hand in his and let him keep it while she said: “It mustn’t be ‘Good-bye,’ Harry. I can’t afford to lose you as a friend--as a--as a brother.” He smiled reproachfully. “And you said you would try to say something new!” Then the little upflash of pleasantry died out, and he spoke as one who leaves hope behind. “No, Isabel; I meant it literally. It must be ‘Good-bye,’ so far as I am concerned. I couldn’t go on as we’ve been going on all these years; I should go mad, some day when the right man turns up, and do that which would make you hate me. No, I shouldn’t”--the denial came quickly in response to the distress that crept into her eyes--“no, I shouldn’t do that, for your sake; but I should be sore and miserable, and that would hurt you, too. You wouldn’t want that, would you?” She shook her head, and he stood irresolute for a moment. Then he said: “Won’t you kiss me, Isabel? You haven’t, you know, since we used to play boy and girl games in the old, old days.” She withdrew her hand quickly. “You mustn’t ask that. It would--it would----” How was he to know that she was trying to tell him that it would undo all that had gone before; that it would break down the frail barrier she had been at such pains to uprear? How was he to guess that he stood at last before the open door of the woman’s heart of her; that he had but to take her in his arms to possess her? Not by anything that she said or did, truly; and yet at that moment her love for him sprang full-armed into being, filling her with joy unspeakable, and promising thenceforth to dominate ambition and all else. But her lover knew it not, and he turned away to grope in thick darkness for the door because the vertigo of failure was blinding him. On the threshold he stopped, and when sight returned looked back at her as she stood under the light of the high easel lamp.