There was no resentment in her voice or attitude that he had shunned her. She stood easily, the train to her dress sweeping over the soft carpet to one side as she had turned. The laces on her breast were creamy and feathery, and her girdle was a zone of gold. Again he waited till his voice was steady, and again he answered, "No!" "Won't you but touch my hand if I ask you to?--for the sake of Jericho!" Her supplicating words brought madness, but the man withstood. He knew, through all the blinding wrack of emotions which tossed in his brain, that in distance alone was safety. Should he feel but her finger tips, he was damned. With that six or eight feet of floor space between them he was master of himself. For the third time he answered "No!" She had been unprepared for this reserve, this fearful coldness. The last time they were together--the last time!--and he had left without a word of farewell to her, without telling her that he was going away. But she knew why he had gone. She was older than he, and had seen more of life. But the element of mercy in her soul was wofully deficient in magnitude. She made no further attempt at once after his third refusal, but stood with head slightly bent, and eyes downcast. "You were not very just to me." Her words came in silken soft purrs from her warm lips--and Glenning prayed! "You treated me badly to go, with never a word, never a written message. I should not have done the same with you John! I have missed you sorely, but my pride has held me back from trying to communicate with you in any way. I have come for the first two days of the fair; I cannot stay longer. The people in this house are distant relatives. I did not know that I would see you, except, possibly, upon the street, and then I knew that you would not recognize me. I was present when they sent a message for you tonight, and I planned this meeting. I wanted to see you again, for a little while. I think you might sit down and talk with me for a moment. It can't be for long, for the hour is late, you know." The quality of her voice was as of one who had been mistreated. There were short breaks in it; suppressions of emotion, and her head had bent towards the light, while the burnished disc of her coiled hair was as a spider's woven mesh. "I came away because it was better for us both that I should come, and you know a farewell was out of the question. I do not see that I have used you badly. You know to what we were drifting. Why bandy words? You know that had I stayed in Jericho my soul would have been lost today, and I would have been an outcast, or dead! It is better so. It is best that we never meet again if we can help it."