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He had crossed to where she was standing by the window, and bentover, speaking with great emotion.

“Since that afternoon at Woodlake when you turned me back again fromthe foolish and ruinous course on which I had decided you–you havebeen more to me than life. Constance, I have never loved until now.Nothing has ever mattered except money. I never had any one else tothink of, care for, except myself. You have changed everything.”

She was gazing out of the window at the tall buildings. There, in amyriad of offices, lay wealth untold, opportunity as yet untasted toseize that wealth. Only for an instant she turned and looked at him,then dropped her eyes. What lay that way?

“You are clear now, respected, respectable,” she said simply.

“Yes, thank God. Clear and with a new ambition, thanks to you.”

She had been expecting this ever since that last night. The reliefof Murray to feel that the old score that would have ruined him wasnow wiped off the slate was precisely what she had anticipated.

Yet, somehow, it disappointed her. She felt instinctively that hertriumph was burning fast to ashes.

“Keep clear,” she faltered.

“Constance,” he urged, approaching closer and taking her cold hand.

Was she to be the one to hold him back in any way from the new lifethat was now before him? What if Drummond, in his animosity, evergot the truth? She gently unclasped her hand from his. No, thathappiness was not for her.

“I am afraid I am a crook at heart, Murray,” she said sadly. “I havegone too far to turn back. The brand is on me. But I am notaltogether bad–yet. Think of me always with charity. Yes,” shecried wildly, “I must return to my loneliness. No, do not try tostop me, you have no right,” she added bitterly as the reality ofher situation burned itself into her heart.

She broke away from him wildly, but with set purpose. The world hadtaken away her husband; now it was a lover; the world must pay.