It flashed back at her how Tony had stood stirring the ashes with his foot that night in Leicester, while he broke his news. A sickening anxiety swept through her to get away from Kincaid before he could have a chance to touch her. The paper charred and curled, without catching flame, and in her impatience she hated him for the delay. She hated herself for being here, lingering in the twilight with a man who dared to feel about her in the same way as Tony had once felt. She rose. "It's no use, doctor; Ellen will have to do it, after all." "Don't go just yet," he said; "I want to speak to you, Miss Brettan." "I can't stay any longer," she said. "I----" "You'll give me a minute? There's something I have been waiting to say to you; I've been waiting a long while." She raised her face to him. In the shadows filling the room, he could see little more than her eyes. "Don't say it. I think I can guess, perhaps.... Don't say it, Dr. Kincaid!" "Yes," he insisted, "I must say it; I'm bound to tell you before I take your answer, Mary. My dear, I love you." Memory gave her back the scene where Tony had said that for the first time. "If you can't care for me, you have only to tell me so to-night; it shall never be a worry to I you--I don't want my love to become a worry to you, to make you wish I weren't here. But if you can care a little ... if you think that when I'm able to ask you to come to me you could come.... Oh, my dear, all my life I'll be tender to you--all my life!" He could not see her eyes any longer; her head was bowed, and in her silence the big man trembled. The servant came in with the taper, and let down the blinds. They stood on the hearth, watching her dumbly. When the blinds were lowered, she turned up the lamp; and the room was bright. Kincaid saw that Mary was very pale. "Is there anything else, miss?" "No, Ellen, thank you; that's all." "Mary?" "I'm so sorry. You don't know how sorry I am!" "You could never care--not ever so little--for me?" "Not in that way: no."