He paused a moment. "I should marry her, I suppose--but she won't. I am not the sort of fellow she could marry." His voice had the tenderest ring in it, but his head was turned away. To see it she leant forward closer to him, almost on her knees, and the firelight lit up her eager, appealing face. "Paul, don't deceive yourself with doubts. You love her more than ever, and if, as you say, she loves you, the result is a foregone conclusion, if you meet. It is a future of poverty, and, oh, how you will regret it! Don't go, Paul, I beg of you; I beseech you--I am an old friend, my dear." As she laid her flashing jewelled hands on his shoulder, his went up mechanically and drew them down. So holding them in his, he looked into her face kindly. "You are, indeed--but I must go--I have no choice." His soft, caressing touch made her risk all, and her breath came fast in swift denial. "No choice! That is not true! You said but now, no one had loved you truly but this girl. Think, Paul, did not I? You know I did. Was it for my own sake that I gave you up--that I sent you away? You know it was not. I am not of the sort on whom the world turns its back. I would have faced it gladly. It was for you. Because you loved your profession--because--but you know it all! Even when I was free, but poor, I would not claim you. Will Marjory do as much for you? Will she say, 'I love you, but I will not injure you by marrying you'? I think not. But I should not injure you now--I am rich, I am rich, and I love you." Once before she had told him so plainly, but it had then been with an easy self-control, suggesting the idea but withholding its inception. Now she was pleading as if for life. "You are very good," he muttered, feeling the truth of what she said. "Yes!" she echoed, with a tinge of bitterness at her lack of power to move him more. "How good you will never know. I have stood between you and more evil than you dream of; and now I ask you to stay with me, Paul, not because I love you, but because you are always happy with me, because you will be safe with me--with me--only with me." That was true also; he was always happy with her. But safe? "I do not understand," he said. "Why should I be safer with you? I know of no danger." Then he clasped her hands tighter, looking into her face curiously. "What is it, Violet? Is there danger? You speak---- By Heaven! there is something, Violet! What is it?" She drew from him quickly, realising her own imprudence, for she was not prepared for any decisive step. "Nothing, Paul--nothing to speak of," she said, rising to her feet with a hasty laugh, but her voice shook, her hands were trembling. "Since you will not listen, go to Marjory; she can protect you as well as I can." "I don't care to hide behind any woman," he said sternly. "Not even behind you. What is it? You are not the kind of woman to say that sort of thing unless you meant it. What danger do you know that I do not?"