Connie Deering had never heard a man speak in agony of spirit. Her lot had fallen among pleasant places, where life was a smooth, shaven lawn and emotions not more violent than the ripples on a piece of ornamental water. His tone gave her a sudden fright. “You do love her, then?” she whispered. “Yes,” said Jimmie, drawing himself up in a tight, awkward heap on the slope. “My God, yes, I do love her. I love her with every fibre of brain and body.” The words were out. More came. He could not restrain them. He gave up the attempt, surrendered himself to the drunkenness of his passion, poured out a torrent of riotous speech. What he said he knew not. Such divine madness comes to a man but few times in a life. The sweet-hearted, frivolous woman, sitting there in the trim little paradise of green, with its velvet turf and trim slopes, and tall mask of trees, all mellow in the shade of the soft September afternoon, listened to him with wondering eyes and pale cheeks. It was no longer Jimmie of the homely face that was talking; he was transfigured. His very voice had changed its quality.... Did he love her? The word was inept in its inadequacy. He worshipped her like a Madonna. He adored her like a queen. He loved her as the man of hot blood loves a woman. Soul and heart and body clamoured for her. Compared with hers, every other woman's beauty was a glow-worm unto lightning. Her voice haunted him like music heard in sleep. Her presence left a fragrance behind that clouded his senses like incense. Her beauty twined itself into every tendril of every woman's hair he painted, stole into the depths of every woman's eyes. It was a divine obsession. “You must fight against it,” Connie whispered tonelessly. “Why should I? Who is harmed? Norma? Who will tell her? Not I. If I choose to fill my life with her splendour, what is that to any one? The desire of the moth for the star! Who heeds the moth?” He went on reckless of speech until his passion had spent itself. Then he could only repeat in a broken way: “Love her? Heaven knows I love her. My soul is a footstool for her to rest her feet upon.” Connie Deering laid her hand on his. “I'm sorry. Oh, I'm sorry, Jimmie. God bless you, dear.” He raised the hand to his lips. Neither spoke. He plucked at the grass by his side; at length he looked up. “You won't give me away, will you?” he said with a smile, using her dialect. She went on her knees and clasped both his wrists. She said the first thing that came, as something sacred, into her head. “I could no more speak of this to any one than of some of my dead husband's kisses.” “I know you are a good true woman, Connie,” he said.