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"I will keep it--in trust," he said, "until you give yourself with it"

But she only shook her head wearily, withdrawing her hands from his, and for a time they sat silent, eyes apart

Then--"There is another reason," she said wistfully

He looked up at her, hesitated, and--"My habits?" he asked simply

"Yes"

"I have them in check"

"Are you--certain?"

"I think I may be--now"

"Yet," she said tiht--since you knewher heart She turned impulsively and laid both hands on his shoulders "That chance I would take, with all its uncertainty, all the dread inheritance you have coh for that; and if it turned out that--that you could not stem the tide, even with rief of it, killed h it all … But there is so else Hush; letelse you do not understand … Turn your face a little; please don't look at enerations, every woinning--with such a e! … deliberately, selfishly, shamelessly, perfectly conscious of the frivolous, erratic blood in me, aware of the race record behind --before I--I e would not only permit me mental tranquillity, but safely anchorme free to become what I am fashioned to become--autocrat and arbiter in my oorld And now! and now! I don't know--truly I don't knohat Iall the shallowness, falseness, pettiness, all the mean, and cruel and callous character which must be truly my real self … Only I shall not ht prove to be when I remember in bitterness all I have renounced If I married you I should remember, unreconciled, what you cost me Better for you and for me that I marry him, and let him bear with me when I remember that he costher eyes with s in the sunshine, and her hair, heavily, densely gold, and the white nape of her neck, and the tiny close-set ears, and the curved softness of cheek and chin; every smooth, childlike contour andlines of body and limb--all valued at many millions by her as her own appraiser