"I hate her--yes." Her voice flamed slightly up with its old fire, but it immediately subsided into tremulous appeal. "But I had no right to talk to you like I did. I can't brag about what I've been, you know." "There, let's say no more about it," he said gently. "Yes, I must. I've been thinking about myself while we were walking along. Thinking of your past isn't always pleasant, is it, when there's so much of it that don't suit you. But I've wanted to improve, and I've tried. Do you think I've improved, a little--David?" The wistful voice drew his hand upon her shoulder. "I wish I had grown as much!" he breathed. She pressed his hand an instant to her cheek, then rose and peered up into his face. "Do you say that!" she said eagerly. "If I've tried to improve--you know why." He looked quickly from her tremulous face, out upon the million-faceted river. He writhed at the pain she must be feeling now, or would some day feel, and was abased that he was its cause. "Oh, why did things have to happen so!" he exclaimed in a whisper. "What happen?" "That you should want--to please me." She did not speak at once, but her hand locked tightly upon his arm and he felt her eyes burning into him. At length she whispered, in a voice taut with emotion: "Then you still care--for _her_?" He nodded. She was again silent, but the locked grip told him of her tensity. "But she's impossible to you. She lives in another world. You still believe this?" "Yes." Silence. "And I'm still next?" "Yes." "And do you like me any less than you did at first?" He looked back upon her impulsively, and caught her hands. "This is a miserable affair, Kate!" he cried. "Can't we forget it--wipe it out--and be just friends?" "Do you like me any less than you did at first?" she repeated. "More!" Her next words tumbled out breathlessly. "I'll keep on improving--you'll like me more and more--and then--!" Her impetuous force fairly dazed him. "Ah, David!" she whispered almost fiercely, gripping his hands, "you can't guess how I love you!" He could not bear her passionate eyes, they pained him so--and he looked back across the river to where a blast furnace was thrusting its red fangs upward into the night. There was a silence, broken only by the monotonous chatter of the ripples among the piles below. Then she went on, still tense, but quieter, and slightly meditative. "Nor how differently I love you. Sometimes there is a tiger in me, and I could kill anyone that stood between us. And then again I'm not the same person; I want first of all what is the best thing for you. When I feel this way I would do almost anything for you, David. I think"--her voice dwindled to the barest whisper--"I think I could almost give you up." CHAPTER XII MR. CHAMBERS TAKES A HAND