"Diana," Enoch began abruptly, "in spite of what your father and John Seaton believed and wanted me to believe, the things that the Brown papers said about my mother are true. Only, Brown did not tell all. He did not give the details of her death. I suppose even Luigi hesitated to tell that because I almost beat him to death the last time he tried it. "Seaton and I never talked much about the matter. He tried to ferret out facts, but had no luck. By the time I was seventeen or eighteen I realized that no man with a mother like mine had a right to marry. But I missed the friendship of women, I suppose, for when I was perhaps eighteen or nineteen I made a discovery. I found that somewhere in my heart I was carrying the image of a girl, a slender girl, with braids of light brown hair wrapped round her head, a girl with the largest, most intelligent, most tender gray eyes in the world, and a lovely curving mouth, with deep corners. I named her Lucy, because I'd been reading Wordsworth and I began to keep a diary to her. I've kept it ever since. "You can have no idea, how real, how vivid, how vital a part of my life Lucy became to me. She was in the very deepest truth my better self, for years. And then this summer, a miracle occurred! Lucy walked into my office! Beauty, serenity, intelligence, sweetness, gaiety, and gallantry--these were Lucy's in the flesh as I could not even dream for Lucy of the spirit. Only in one particular though had I made an actual error. Her name was not Lucy, it was Diana! Diana! the little girl of Bright Angel who had entered my turbulent boyish heart, all unknown to me, never to leave it! . . . Diana! Lucy! I love you and God help me, I must not marry!" Enoch, his nails cutting deep into his palms turned from the river, at which he had been staring steadily while speaking, to Diana. Her eyes which had been fastened on Enoch's profile, now gazed deep into his, pain speaking to pain, agony to agony. "If," Enoch went on, huskily, "there is no probability of your growing to care for me, then I think our friendship can endure. I can crowd back the lover and be merely your friend. But if you might grow to care, even ever so little, then, I think at the thought of your pain, my heart would break. So, I thought before it is too late--" Suddenly Diana's lips which had grown white, trembled a little. "It is too late!" she whispered. "It is too late!" and she put her slender, sunburned hands over her face. "Don't! Oh, don't!" groaned Enoch. He took her hands down, gently. Diana's eyes were dry. Her cheeks were burning. Enoch looked at her steadily, his breath coming a little quickly, then he rose and with both her hands in his lifted her to her feet. "Do you love me, Diana?" he whispered. She looked up into his eyes. "Yes, Enoch! Oh, yes!" she answered, brokenly. "How much do you love me, dear?" he persisted.