"If you'll let me stay with you a little while longer--that is all I ask," she said almost drowsily. Molly sprang up, came around and kissed her, lightly: "Of course. That was what I was going to ask of you." [Illustration: "'If you'll let me, I'll stand by you, darling.'"] Strelsa closed her eyes. "I'll stay," she murmured. Molly laid her own cool face down beside Strelsa's hot cheek, kneeling beside the bed. "Dear," she whispered, "let us wait and see what happens. There's just one thing that has distorted your view--a dreadful experience with one man--two years of hell's own horror with one of its wretched inhabitants. I don't believe the impression is going to last a lifetime. I don't believe it is indelible. I believe somehow, some time you will learn that a man's love does not mean horror and degradation; that it is no abuse of friendship which offers love also, to return it with friendship only. "Sir Charles offers that; and you refuse because you do not love him and will not use his friendship to aid yourself to material comfort. "And I suspect you have said the same thing to Rix. Have you?" The girl lay silent, eyes closed. "Never mind; don't answer. I know you well enough to know that you said some such thing to Rix.... And it's all right in its way. But the alternative is not what you think it is--not this bargain with Langly for a place to lay your tired head--not this deal to decorate his name and estates in return for personal immunity. You are wrong--I'm not immoral, only unmoral--as many of us are--but you've gone all to pieces, dear--morally, mentally, nervously--and it's not from cowardice, not from depravity. It is the direct result of the two years of terror and desperate self-control--two years of courage--high moral courage, determination, self-suppression--and of the startling and dreadful climax. "That is the blow you are now feeling--and the reaction even after two years more of half-stunned solitude. You are waking, darling; that is all. And it hurts." Strelsa's bare arm moved a little, moved, groping, and tightened around Molly's neck. And they remained that way for a long while, Molly kneeling on the floor beside her. "Don't you ever cry?" she whispered. "Not--now." "It would be better if you could." "There are no tears--I--I am burnt out--all burnt out----" "You need strength." "I haven't the desire for it any longer." "Not the desire to face things pluckily?" "No--no longer. Everything's dead in me except the longing for--quiet. I'll pay any price for it--except misuse of friends." "How could you misuse Rix by marrying him?" "By accepting what I could never return." "Love?" "Yes." "Does he ask that?" "N-no--not now. But--he wants it. And I haven't it to give. So I can't take his--and let him work all his life for my comfort--I can't take it from Sir Charles and accept the position and fortune he offered me once----" She lay silent a moment, then unclosed her eyes.