[Illustration: "'Mary,' he said, 'do you remember your words eleven months ago?'"] "I remember them perfectly." "Well, there was only one way in which you could help me then, and that was why I went away. And I never intended to return unless I could claim that which you offered me." "Was it necessary?" "Mere friendship is no use to you and me. But I couldn't ask you to marry me then, although I knew ... at least I thought I knew ... you'll tell me if I am wrong..." She couldn't help smiling a little at this rather childlike confusion. "... that you would marry me if I asked you. But I didn't, because I couldn't. Do you understand that? Do you still look at things in the way you did?" The soul of a poor mariner might be tempest tossed on all the oceans of the world, but the soul of Mary Pridmore was the fixed star of his faith. The mere thought seemed to brace his courage for the task that honor laid upon him. He took her hand. It was the only manifestation he would allow himself until he had told her. "I could not ask you to marry me then," he said, "because I had a wife." "You had a wife." She repeated the words numbly, incredulously. "I had a wife," he said, doggedly. "She died two months ago." "And ... and you never told me!" "No." There was an edge to her tone that had struck like a knife. "Henry!" "I tried," he said feebly. "God knows I tried." "You don't mean you deceived me?" Her voice was hardening. "No." A queer kind of faintness was coming over him. "I don't mean that. You never asked me and ... and I never told you." "But you knew I took it for granted that you were not married." The order and precision of her speech began to frighten him. He could give no answer. "You knew that." Her voice was hurting him terribly. "I don't say I didn't," he said. He had a sick feeling that he was already in the jaws of a trap. God in heaven, what madness had lured him to tell her when he had no need to do so! "Then you deceived me." The voice was pitiless. He looked at her with scared eyes. "Don't say that," he said. He saw there was a cold light blazing in her and he began to grow miserably afraid. "I tried very hard not to deceive you," he said. "God knows I tried. And it was because I couldn't go on with it that I went away and ... and never meant to see you again." "I don't quite think that is an excuse." Somehow the words seemed to goad him on to unknown perils. But he was in a quicksand, the ground was moving under his feet. "You don't know what my life has been," he said desperately. "You don't know what a wife I married, you don't know anything about me, else you wouldn't be so hard."