"You will always be good to me--promise that, promise me, dear," she begged, "because if you're not I'll----" Her voice choked and two tears rolled down her cheeks. Gone was her freedom and her pride. She spoke, not as her ideal had been, partner speaking to partner on even terms, but as a servant to her master, asking not justice but mercy. Her solitary happiness in this hour was the feeling that the man was the stronger, that despite his greenness and awkwardness and the ease with which she had hitherto controlled him, fundamentally his nature was bigger than hers and that she was compelled to follow him. In her new feebleness she rejoiced that she sinned not boldly and resolutely, but because she had been taken in the traditional manner by the overpowering male. "I have been looking forward to this for longer than you suspect," said she, "and now that it's come, I feel as if I were at a play watching it happen to some one else." He put his hand on her shoulder, then quickly turned her white face to his. "Why, what is the matter?" he asked. "You are shaking like a leaf." "I think I'd better go home. It is damp and cold sitting here." After they had gone a few steps, she said, with a weak little laugh, "I've lost my enthusiasm for walking. Put me on the car." He began to be thoroughly frightened. "Don't worry, dear," she reassured him. "Nothing can change us now. We belong to each other--for keeps." They said little to each other in the brightly lighted street car. She sat slightly crumpled, her shoulders rounded, swaying to the stops and starts. She breathed slowly through her lips, and her eyes had the strange wide-open look of a young bird's, when you hold it in your hands. And he, but partly understanding, yearned for her helplessly, and covenanted with his nameless gods that no sorrow should ever come to her from him. She hung to his arm as they walked up the half-lighted street where she lived, between rows of three, four and five story flat buildings full of drama. Outside her own she stopped and looked up to her windows. They were brightly lighted. Instead of using her key, she rang the bell to her apartment. She heard Al's voice in answer. "Is Jim there?" she asked. "Yes." She turned to Stevens with a flash of her old positiveness. "I must go somewhere else. And I don't feel like telling my troubles to any friend to-night. So will you take me to a hotel?" They returned to the car line by an unusual street, lest Al should come looking after her, she driving her sick frame along by sheer will, her lover resolved that if need be he would save her from herself. She waited while he engaged her room, and when he came bringing her key, he said, "I have put you down as Miss Talbot." "Oh, you were nice to think of that. I like to imagine sometimes it still is so." She took his hand. "Good night, dear," she whispered. "I will be a true wife to you." XV MR. SILVERMAN