Susan seated herself and waited. He lit a cigar with the deliberation of one who is striving to gain time. The bench happened to be one of those that are divided by iron arms into individual seats. He sat with a compartment between them. The moonbeams struck across his profile as he turned it toward her; they shone full upon her face. He looked, hastily glanced away. With a gruffness as if the evening mist had got into his throat he said: "Let's take another bench." "Why?" objected she. "I like this beautiful light." He rose. "Please let me have my way." And he led her to a bench across which a tree threw a deep shadow; as they sat there, neither could see the other's face except in dimmest outline. After a brief silence he began: "You love Rod--don't you?" She laughed happily. "Above everything on earth?" "Or in heaven." "You'd do anything to have him succeed?" "No one could prevent his succeeding. He's got it in him. It's bound to come out." "So I'd have said--until a year ago--that is, about a year ago." As her face turned quickly toward him, he turned profile to her. "What do you mean?" said she, quickly, almost imperiously. "Yes--I mean _you_," replied he. "You mean you think I'm hindering him?" When Drumley's voice finally came, it was funereally solemn. "You are dragging him down. You are killing his ambition." "You don't understand," she protested with painful expression. "If you did, you wouldn't say that." "You mean because he is not true to you?" "Isn't he?" said she, loyally trying to pretend surprise. "If that's so, you've no right to tell me--you, his friend. If it isn't, you----" "In either case I'd be beneath contempt--unless I knew that you knew already. Oh, I've known a long time that you knew--ever since the night you looked away when he absent-mindedly pulled a woman's veil and gloves out of his pocket. I've watched you since then, and I know." "You are a very dear friend, Mr. Drumley," said she. "But you must not talk of him to me." "I must," he replied. And he hastened to make the self-fooled hypocrite's familiar move to the safety of duty's skirts. "It would be a crime to keep silent." She rose. "I can't listen. It may be your duty to speak. It's my duty to refuse to hear." "He is overwhelmed with debt. He is about to lose his position. It is all because he is degraded--because he feels he is entangled in an intrigue with a woman he is ashamed to love--a woman he has struggled in vain to put out of his heart."