"Prudence, I've thought of this hour day and night since I saw your dear face light up at sight of me, and your dear eyes smile their welcome into mine. You are mine by every natural law; and I'm going to take you. Scruples! We have no use for such folly. They didn't scruple to marry you to a man too old for you. He had no scruple against taking you without love. They've themselves to thank for this. What does it matter? It's our own lives we have to think for. Leave everything to me. Don't worry. I'll manage things. I am taking you away with me to-night... Life's going to be just splendid, dear. We'll be together. Oh, Prudence, it will be great--wonderful! My dear! ... Oh, my dearest!" Very tenderly he kissed her lips again. Prudence suddenly disengaged herself from his arms and slipped to her feet and stood facing him, the moonlight splashed on her hair and face, and on the slender bare arms, which she lifted on an impulse, bringing the hands to rest on his shoulders. "We can't, dear," she said. "We can't. It isn't that I'm afraid; it isn't that I don't love you--better than any one in all the world. It's just because I love you so well, I think, that I can't have the beauty of it spoiled. That sort of thing brings regret--always." "You don't dare," he said in sullen tones. "You are thinking of what people will say." "No; it isn't that. I don't wish to pose as good--I've never been good. But clean and decent living appeals to me. I'm cold, perhaps--even a little hard; it isn't so difficult for me to practise restraint--when I try--hard. I'm loving you with all my heart, dear; but I don't want to do what you ask. If I agreed, I should hate myself, my life, everything, when the glamour faded and I had time to reflect. I know myself so well. I would rather go on with my dull loveless life than go away with you and lose my self-respect." "You don't love me," he said. "You couldn't talk like that if you were in love. It's unnatural. I'd risk damnation for you." She leaned a little nearer to him, and a new quality came into her voice; her face was solemn and tender. "There's something else I'm thinking of besides these things," she said. "I can't bear that you should go to face death--to meet death, perhaps--with this sin upon your soul. I don't like to think that men can talk so lightly of sinning in such grave and terrible times." He made an impatient sound that was like a cry of protest, and moved restlessly under her hands. "Oh, hang it all! One doesn't want to be thinking all the time about that."