He said no more, but as he turned to go from her, she came close up to him, touching him lightly on his arm. His love had been very dear to her; might she not keep a slight chain upon him still, so that in the future she might have some little hold upon him; and, indeed, did she not love him all the more because of his hot anger, and bitter truth, and loyal love? She put out both her hands to him--her voice was very gentle and pleading: "Since we are to part, Philip, and you will have it so, will you not kiss me once, only once more, for good-bye?" He turned from her, unheeding her pleading voice or hands. "Do not say it is _my_ will that we part, Patricia; be just at least, if you cannot be generous. No, I will not kiss you now, I am not quite a hypocrite; perhaps one day, when I can believe and trust in you again, Patty, or when all my love for you is dead, or when I can think of you, look at you, judge you, as other men do, then I will kiss you, but not until then. Ask me then, Patricia." "I will never ask you again," she answered passionately; "but you, Philip, shall be the first to beg a kiss from me, and I shall be the one to make your pride suffer, as you now make mine." Then she left him, sweeping by him, proud, tremulous, excited, stung to the heart, but making no sign. He heard her laugh ring out joyously, a moment later, as she applauded some witticism of one of her admirers, and with a muttered exclamation he made his way out into the night. So they had parted, and never since that unhappy evening had they met. Time went on; there came trouble to Patricia in the death of her mother; he wrote her a cold note of condolence, to which he received no reply; then rumour brought him the knowledge of her inherited wealth, and, shortly after, of her engagement to a man many years her senior. Of her wealth he thought little, of her engagement he spoke calmly, and with the air of a cynic, who beholds all things pass by, good and bad, and says, in the bitterness of his soul, _cui bono_? But, inwardly his love and pride were roused from their sleep of years, and he owned to himself, with a hard honesty, that to think of her as belonging to another man than he was intolerable. He had not been able to keep her love when he won it, but it was none the less a pain to find that another had succeeded where he had failed. Time, however, that wonderful physician, in a measure numbed his distress, and to his world he posed as a charming man, though cold and heartless; not one to be sentimental over a dead past, but rather one to make his power felt, and to lead and bend other wills by the stern inflexibility of his own. And then had come Patricia's letter, telling of her broken toys; asking to be taken back into his affections; seeking to creep back into the old shelter of his heart, where once she had ruled so proudly.