"None of the Makimmons have been good business men; we are not distrustful. I sent the cheque to the address he said, made out to him for the Standard Hardware Company, so that he would get the commission, the credit of the sale." He drew a deep breath, gazing across the moonlit fields. "The Makimmons are not distrustful," he reiterated; "he robbed me of all my savings." His lie would have fared badly with Pompey Hollidew, he thought grimly; it was unconvincing, wordy; he was conscious that his assumed emotion rang thinly. But its calculated effect was instantaneous, beyond all his hopes, his plan. Lettice leaned close to him with a sobbing inspiration of sympathy and pity. "How terrible!" she cried in low tones; "you were so noble--" He breathed heavily once more. "What a wicked, wicked man. Couldn't you get anything back? did it all go?" "All." His hand fell upon hers, and neither of them appeared to notice its pressure. Her face was close to his, a tear gleamed on her young, moon-blanched cheek. A sudden impatience seized him at her credulity, a contempt at the ease with which she was victimized; the effort was almost without spice. Still his grasp tightened upon her hand, drew it toward him. "In Greenstream," he continued, "men don't like me, they are afraid of me; but the women make me unhappy--they tell me their troubles; I don't want them to, I keep away from them." "I understand that," she declared eagerly, "I would tell you anything." "You are different; I want you to tell me ... things. But the things I want to hear may not come to you. I would never be satisfied with a little. The Makimmons are all that way--everything or nothing." She gently loosened her hand, and stood up, facing him. Her countenance, turned to the light, shone like a white flame; it was tensely aquiver with passionate earnestness, lambent with the flowering of her body, of dim desire, the heritage of flesh. She spoke in a voice that startled Gordon by its new depth, the brave thrill of its undertone. "I could only give all," she said. "I am like that too. What do you wish me to tell you? What can I say that will help you?" "Ever since I first saw you going to the Stenton school," he hurried on, "I have thought about you. I could hardly wait for the Christmas holidays, to have you in the stage, or for the summer when you came home. Nobody knows; it has been a secret ... it seemed so useless. You were like a ... a star," he told her.