"I’m not free to tell you.... Oh, Jim! I adore you—I do love you so—so deeply. I’m married. I’m sorry I’m married. But I can’t help it—I can’t get out of it—it scares me even to think of trying——" "What hold has that man——" "No hold. There’s something else—something sad, terrible——" "I’ll take you, anyway," he said in a low, tense voice. "He will have his remedy." "How, Jim? Do you mean that you wish me to defy opinion with you? You wouldn’t let me do that, would you, dear? I’d do it if you asked, but you wouldn’t let me, would you?" "No." He had lost his head for a moment; that was all; and the ugly threat had been wrenched out of him in the confusion of a tortured mind struggling against it knew not what. "Jim," she asked under her breath, "would you really _let_ me?" "No," he said savagely. "I knew you wouldn’t." Her arm slipped from his neck and again she clasped both slender hands, rested them on his shoulder, and laid her cheek against them. "It wouldn’t help me out of this pickle if we misbehaved," she said thoughtfully. "It wouldn’t solve the problem.... I suppose you’ve taken me seriously as an apostle of that new liberty which ignores irregularities—doesn’t admit them to be irregular. That’s why you said what you did say, I fancy. I’ve talked enough modern foolishness to have you think me quite emancipated—quite indifferent to the old social order, the old code of morals, the old dogmas, the ancient and orthodox laws of community and individual conduct.... Haven’t you supposed me quite capable of sauntering away unconventionally with the man I love, after the ironical and casual spectacle of marriage which I have afforded you?" "I don’t know," he said bitterly. "I don’t know what I have thought.... There will never be anybody except you. If I lose you I lose the world. But between you and me there is a deeper tie than anything less than marriage could sanction. We couldn’t ever do that, Steve—let the world go hang while we gave it an extra kick for each other’s sakes." "Because," she whispered, "dad’s roof was ours. For his honour, if not for our own, we could not affront the world, dear.... Not that I don’t love you enough!" she added almost fiercely. "I do love you enough! I don’t care whether you know it. Nothing would matter—if there were no other way—and if I were free to take the only way that offered. Do you suppose I’d hesitate if it lay between taking that way and losing you?" She turned and began to pace the path excitedly, cheeks flushed and hands clenching and unclenching. "What do I care about myself!" she said. She snapped her fingers: "I don’t care _that_, Jim, when your happiness is at stake! I’d go to you, go with you, love you, face the world undaunted. I care nothing about myself. I know myself! What am I? _You_ know!" She came up close to him, her face afire, her grey eyes brilliant.