She showed him the correspondence, proof of all that she had said, and he read with a face haggard in unhappiness.' "There' There!" she said. "You've not heard me make any outcry yet, have you? Why should you, then? I have seen men lay down their lives for a principle, a belief. You will see that again. Should not a woman lay down her money? "But as to that," she went on lightly, "why, there are many things one might do. I might make a rich alliance, don't you think?" He suddenly stiffened and straightened, and looked her full in the eye, a slow flush coming across his face. "I couldn't have said it any time before this," said he. "It has been in my heart all along, but I didn't dare--not then. Yes, a rich alliance if you liked, I do not doubt. There's a poor one waiting for you, any time you like. You know that. You must have seen it, a thousand times--" She advanced to him easily and held out both her hands. "Now, now!" she said. "Don't begin that. You'll only hurt us both. My lieutenant, visionary as myself! Ah, we've failed." "But everybody will blame you--you will have no place to go--it will be horrible--you don't begin to know what it means. Of course, we have made mistakes." "Then let's not make the worst mistake of all," she said. "But we could do so much--" She turned upon him suddenly, pale, excited. "Do not!" she cried. "Do not use those words! It seems to me that that is what all men think and say. 'How much we could do--together!' Do not say that to me." At this he sobered. "Then there is some one else?" he said slowly. "You've heard some one else use those words? I couldn't blame him. Well, I wish him happiness. And I wish you happiness, too. I had no right to presume." "Happiness!--what is that?" she said slowly. "I've been trying to find it all my life. My God! How crooked were all the mismated planets at my birth! I haven't been happy myself. I do not think that I've added one iota to the happiness of any one else, I've just failed, that's all. And I've tried so hard--to do something, something for the world! Oh, can a woman--can she, ever?" For once shaken, she dropped her face an instant in her hands, he standing by, mute, and suffering much as herself at seeing her thus suffer. "But now," she continued after a time, "--I want to ask you whether I've been ungenerous or vindictive with you--" "Vindictive? You? Never! But why should you be?" "Captain," she said easily, "my lieutenant, my friend, let me say--I will not be specific--I will not mention names or dates; but do you think, if you were a woman, you could ever marry a man who once, behind your back, with not even eagerness to incite him, but coolly, deliberately--had played a game of cards for--you?"