"Why him especially?" she asked mechanically. David hesitated. "Well, you see one thing that makes him feel close to me is that he believes we have both been in the same situation. In a way that has made us brothers. If he knew otherwise, it might make a difference to him." "I understand!" said Kate's muffled voice. She asked him details of the story Lillian Drew had revealed, and since she already knew so much, he told her--though he felt her interest was not in what he told her. At length--he had yielded himself to her guidance--they came out upon the dock where they had talked a month before. She had wanted to be with him alone, and she had thought of no better place. Despite the wind's being filled with needles, they took their stand at the dock's end. They looked out at the river that writhed and leaped under the wind's pricking--black, save beneath the arc lamps of the Williamsburg bridge, where the rearing little wave-crests gleamed, sunk, and gleamed again. For several minutes they were silent. Then the choked words burst from her: "I'm not fit to be your friend!" "You mustn't let this afternoon make a difference, Kate," he besought. "It doesn't to me. Fit to be my friend! You are--a thousand times over! I admire you--I honour you--I'm proud to have you for a friend!" She quickly looked up at him. The light from the bridge lamps, a giant string of glowing beads, lay upon her face. In it there gleamed the sudden embers of hope. "But can you love me--some time?" she whispered. It was agony to him to shake his head. "I knew it!" she breathed dully. When he saw the gray, dead despair in her face, he cried out, in his agony and abasement: "Don't take it so, Kate! I'm not worthy to be the cause of so much pain." She looked back at the river; the wind had set her shivering, but she did not know she was cold. He saw that she was thinking, so he did not speak. After several minutes she asked in a low voice: "Do you still love Miss Chambers?" He remained silent. "Do you?" "Yes." "As much as I love you?" "Yes." There was a pause. When she next spoke she was looking him tensely in the face. "Would she love you if she knew the truth?" "I shall never tell her." "But would she love you?" she repeated, fiercely. She clutched his arms and her eyes blazed. "She'd better not!--I'd kill her!" The face he looked down into was that of a wild animal. He gazed at it with fear and fascination. The vindictive fire began slowly to burn lower, then, at a puff, it was out. "No!--No!" she cried, convulsively, gripping his arms tighter. "I wouldn't! You know I wouldn't!" The face, so rageful a minute before, was now twitching, and the tears, that came so hard, were trembling on her lashes. Her eyes embraced his face for several moments. "Ah, David!" she cried, and her words were borne upward on the sobs that now shook her, "even if you don't love me, David--I want you to be happy!" CHAPTER V THE COMMAND OF LOVE