"Please, Stuart!" Marian's face was momentarily drawn in a paroxysm of pain. "Please don't make me pretty speeches. It isn't necessary--and it doesn't help." "I'm not making pretty speeches," he declared. "My love is a hopeless one, but I can't deny its force without lying. I've helped you spoil your life and if I can help you mend it--" He broke off there and then abruptly he said: "Marian, will you marry me?" She carried her hands to her face and covered her eyes. For a moment she sat in a stunned attitude and her words came faintly: "I understand your motive, dear. It's gallant--but it wouldn't do." "Why?" he demanded and again her head came up with the bearing of pride. "I've already told you that it's not rehabilitation in the eyes of the world I seek. For you it would be sacrifice--and for me a failure. If you asked me because you loved me, and I believed I could make you happy I think you know what my answer would be. But to marry you without your loving me--well, that would be--" She paused and then finished: "It would be sheer Hell." Stuart leaned over and picked up the pipe. His face was rigid and self-accusing, and the woman laid her hand on his arm. "You have ridden with me in the hunting field, Stuart," she irrelevantly reminded him. "I hope you'll testify that I can take my croppers when they come. Please don't think I'm whimpering." "One could hardly think that," he declared. A sudden thought brought a fresh anxiety to her eyes, as she vehemently demanded: "Was she--was Miss Williams, influenced by what people said about you and me?" "I suppose," he said, "the only version she had was the public one, and I fancy there were those about her who made use of it, but I don't believe it affected her decision." Marian's voice was very low, almost tender now. "It would mean a good deal to you, wouldn't it, to have her know the truth?" His hand gripped her own feelingly for a moment and he nodded his head but, in words, he said only: "Yes--it would." "I wish I knew her. I wish I could set you straight with her," she told him and after that she rose. "At all events it was worth the experiment," she commented. "Well, '_la comedia e finita_.' I think now I'll go to bed." * * * * * Conscience dealt relentlessly with herself in those storms of argument which arose in her mind and had to be fought out; storms involving the readjustment of her life to the partnership of marriage. Yet she must not, if she placed value upon success, fall into the class of parasite wives who suffer their own independence of thought to languish.