How was he to explain to this fair young thing that she loved nobody and could never hope to marry him? There was no doubt that with her intense nature and her dreamy blue eyes she would pine away and die. Or worse, she would live to be an old maid. He made an effort to laugh it off. "Tush!" he said, "all this is mere imagination. I don't believe you really love anybody!" "Frank!" She drew herself up, stony and rigid, the warm tears on her poor white face frozen to ice. "Have you nothing better than this to say to me, after I have shown you my inmost soul?" The wretched young lawyer's face returned from white to red. He could have faced a football team in open combat, but these complex psychical positions were beyond the healthy young Philistine. "For--or--give me," he stammered. "I--I am--I--that is to say, Fladpick--oh how can I explain what I mean?" Cecilia sobbed on. Every sob seemed to stick in Frank's own throat. His impotence maddened him. Was he to let the woman he loved fret herself to death for a shadow? And yet to undeceive her were scarcely less fatal. He could have cut out the tongue that first invented Fladpick. Verily, his sin was finding him out. "Why can you not explain what you mean?" wept Cecilia. "Because I--oh, hang it all--because I am the cause of your grief." "You?" she said. A strange, wonderful look came into her eyes. The thought shot from her eyes to his and dazzled them. Yes! why not? why should he not sacrifice himself to save this delicate creature from a premature tomb? Why should he not become "the English Shakespeare?" True, it was a heavy burden to sustain, but what will a man not dare or suffer for the woman he loves? Moreover, was he not responsible for Fladpick's being, and thus for all the evil done by his Frankenstein? He had employed Fladpick for his own amusement and the Employers' Liability Act was heavy upon him. The path of abnegation, of duty, was clear. He saw it and he went for it then and there--went, like a brave young Englishman, to meet his marriage. "Yes," he said, "I am glad you love Mr. Fladpick." "Why?" she murmured breathlessly. "Because I love you." "But--I--do--not--love--you," she said slowly. "You will, when I tell you it is I who have provoked your love." "Frank, is this true?" "On my word of honor as an Englishman." "You are Fladpick?" "If I am not, he does not exist. There is no such person." "Oh, Frank, this is no cruel jest?" "Cecilia, it is the sacred truth. Fladpick is nobody, if he is not Frank Grey." "But you never lived in Tartary?" "Of course not. All that about Fladpick is the veriest poetry. But I did not mind it, for nobody suspected me. I'll introduce you to Andrew Mackay himself, and you shall hear from his own lips how the newspapers have lied about Fladpick." "My noble, modest boy! So this was why you were so embarrassed before! But why not have told _me_ that you were Fladpick?" "Because I wanted you to love me for myself alone."