He knew he had asked Florence to marry him; and yet he revolved desperately some way of making Julia believe that he loved her. He would pay any price for that. Could he pay the price of playing false, of telling Florence that since he had asked her to marry him he had fallen in love with another woman? It was better than that Julia should remember him all her life with loathing. That was insupportable. But could his freedom, now, bring her back? That he could ever explain his hesitation was preposterous. He could not hope she would understand it. And not understanding, how could she forgive? Hopeless! How she must hate him! She could not hate him more than he hated himself. He walked to the window. The wind puffed the thin curtains against his face. The whispering silk was like the soft rush of her from the room. She was a child. She would not remember too long. A hard thought. Perhaps this whole inexplicable business was a madness of this latter spring, a thing of blood. But now, here, it was a torment. The thing was to get away—anywhere, instantly! But there was Florence. He came back sullenly enough to that thought. He knew he must see her before he went. She had always stood to him for what was honorable and reasonable against what was impulse. Duty was the word above all others he hated, but he was bound to it now. He had never pictured Florence so palely as at this moment. She had been a fascination, an inspiration, a companion. She had been everything to him. There had been a moment, a transfiguration; and she was an obligation, a debt unpaid. She deserved a hundredfold more than he could give, and he almost hated her for it. Yet—he reasoned resolutely, as he crossed the library—she, who had given so much, who had centered her life in his interests, had the greatest right to his honor and faith. And she _should_ have them, he thought. But he must see her at once. Through the open doors of the reception-hall he heard voices from somewhere out of sight over the dip of the terrace. The hall was empty of all but a slim, Spanish-eyed maid wiping down the wainscoting. She thought that Mrs. Essington was in her room. She carried up-stairs the card Longacre wrote upon. He waited, tossing over the accumulations of the morning’s mail. A dog came and sat in the open door, his tail beating the mat with expectation of attention. It was one of Julia’s dachshunds. There flashed back to Longacre, with all the colors and odors keen as if actual, the picture of the girl standing tall and flushed on the dripping grass, tossing pebbles down the terrace. He felt a sharp contraction of heart. That memory made what he was about to do unendurable.