Ann went on more softly. "You've saved my life--you've done much more than that, an' the only kindness I can do you is just to tell you to go. If I let you go on caring for me, I'd be doing you a wicked wrong." Baird flung back his head; color and life and the urge to fight had come back to him. "Suppose you let me decide what's best for me! How can you judge of the future? Am I hateful or repellent to you?... I don't believe it. You like me, and in the end you'll love me." "I can't ever love you," Ann said firmly. He took her hands. "Ann, give me a little time, dear? Just a fighting chance?... That's all I ask." "No. I've been responsible for trouble enough--I can't do it." "Why can't you? What possible harm can it do for you simply to be kind to me? Give me a chance?" She was silent, trembling and breathing quickly. Baird bent and kissed her hands, put his cheek against them. "Ann, I love you--I never dreamed that I could love any one as I love you. You've gone deep down in me and nestled against things I didn't know were there. I'll be patient--if only you'll give me a word of hope." "I can't--I can't give you hope when there isn't any!" Ann said with sudden sharpness. "If you asked me for anything else in the world I'd give it to you, but you want a thing I can't give!" Baird dragged himself up and stood with his back to her. "You hurt me--" he said through his teeth. "I'd have to hurt you--like this--every time you came," Ann said with a drop into huskiness. "That's why I'm beggin' you to go an' stop thinking about me. I've got to go on livin' whether I want to or not, an' I couldn't bear it." Baird turned around. "I'll go," he said. "I'll go to-morrow.... But I'm coming back, Ann.... I'll keep on coming to the end of time. I put my life into you that night--you're part of me. It isn't a debt you owe me, it's just that I belong to you and you to me!" He spoke with passionate conviction. Ann said nothing; she sat with eyes closed. Then he said thickly, "I've made you ill--is there any one here to look after you?" "Yes--Aunt Sue--" He bent down, took her face between his hands and kissed her lips. "I'm going now. I had to say that last--it's true." XXXVII COLD CASH "July, August and September--an endless number of Julys, Augusts and Septembers as futile as these last three months have been. That's my future, I suppose--if I go on with it," Baird said to himself. He had just come up through the Mine Banks Road, had crossed the County Road, and had turned into the long winding approach to Westmore.