“It isn't so strange. What is strange is that I--that I didn't foresee it all. But if I had,” he added firmly, “I'd have done it just the same--unless by doing it I've really done you more harm than good.” “No--no--Jack!” “I came into your world--you went into mine. What I had grown indifferent about--you grew to care about. You grew sensitive while I was growing callous to certain--” he was about to say “surface things,” but he checked himself--“certain things in life that mean more to a woman than to a man. I would not have married you as you were--I've got to be honest now--at least I thought it necessary that you should be otherwise--and now you have gone beyond me, and now you do not want to marry me as I am. And it is all very natural and very just.” Very slowly her head had dropped until her chin rested hard above the little jewelled cross on her breast. “You must tell me if I am wrong. You don't love me now--well enough to be happy with me here”--he waved one hand toward the straggling little town below them and then toward the lonely mountains--“I did not know that we would have to live here--but I know it now--” he checked himself, and afterward she recalled the tone of those last words, but then they had no especial significance. “Am I wrong?” he repeated, and then he said hurriedly, for her face was so piteous--“No, you needn't give yourself the pain of saying it in words. I want you to know that I understand that there is nothing in the world I blame you for--nothing--nothing. If there is any blame at all, it rests on me alone.” She broke toward him with a cry then. “No--no, Jack,” she said brokenly, and she caught his hand in both her own and tried to raise it to her lips, but he held her back and she put her face on his breast and sobbed heart-brokenly. He waited for the paroxysm to pass, stroking her hair gently. “You mustn't feel that way, little girl. You can't help it--I can't help it--and these things happen all the time, everywhere. You don't have to stay here. You can go away and study, and when I can, I'll come to see you and cheer you up; and when you are a great singer, I'll send you flowers and be so proud of you, and I'll say to myself, 'I helped do that.' Dry your eyes, now. You must go back to the hotel. Your father will be there by this time and you'll have to be starting home pretty soon.” Like a child she obeyed him, but she was so weak and trembling that he put his arm about her to help her down the hill. At the edge of the woods she stopped and turned full toward him. “You are so good,” she said tremulously, “so GOOD. Why, you haven't even asked me if there was another--” Hale interrupted her, shaking his head. “If there is, I don't want to know.” “But there isn't, there isn't!” she cried, “I don't know what is the matter with me. I hate--” the tears started again, and again she was on the point of breaking down, but Hale checked her.