"Yes, it is over between us. Your sense of justice will not have to undergo the ordeal of forcing your sense of honor to link itself with dishonor. To your credit, I believe you would have married me, John, and I am grateful. But there's an end of it. I have come to say good-by. I suppose it is absurd, but I wish we could remain friends." This time he took her hand in his. Now that the artificial union between them was done away with, their real friendship for each other came back and took its rightful place in their lives. "Why shouldn't we, Beatrice?" he said. "Heaven knows, we both have need of friends." "It is a strange thing," she continued thoughtfully, "that, though you are so completely my opposite, I have always liked you. Even when you most jarred upon me with your prunes-and-prisms morality, I was never able quite to close my heart. I wonder why?" He could not repress a faint amusement at the flash of her old self. "It has been the same with me," he said. "Even when you trod on all my principles at once, I haven't been able to smother a sort of shamefaced respect for you. You always seemed more worthy of respect than--well, some of the others." "I suppose it is our sincerity," she said. "You are sincere in your goodness, and I, paradoxical as it sounds, in my badness." "I think not," he answered, looking her gravely in the face. "I think it is because the hidden best in both of us recognized each other and held out the hand of friendship almost without our knowing." She smiled, but he saw a light sparkle in her eyes. "Oh, practical John, you are making fast progress in the soul's world! Who has taught you?" He turned away from her back to the table and stood there gazing out over the garden. "No one. It is a mood I have on today which makes me see clearer than I have done before. Go now--if any one saw you here, you know what Marut would say." "Yes, I know Marut very well by now. Not that it much matters. Good-by. Please--I found my way alone; I can find the way out." She had reached the door before he stopped her. "Beatrice!" She turned. "What is it?" "I have a favor to ask of you--or rather, I have a trust to put in your hands. It is in a sort of way the seal upon our good understanding. There is no one else whom I could trust so much." She came back to his side. A new color was in her cheeks. Her eyes looked less tired, less hopeless. "A trust? That would make life worth living." He took up the packet on the table and gave it to her. "That is my will. I made it afresh last night. It was witnessed this morning. In it I have made you my executrix, with half my estate. The other half I have left to Lois." "Now you must leave it all to her," she said.