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Wratislaw guessed with a friend's instinct his friend's disquietude, and turned his steps to the hill when he had heard the butler's inary self-upbraidings, and he was prepared for therey and wretched face in the lee of the pinewood A sudden suspicion that Lewis had been guilty of some real dishonour flashed across his mind for the moment, only to be driven out with scorn

"Lewie,with you?" he cried

The other looked at hi to find out hed in spite of hiical discoveries on such a day! Is it all over the little rew in Lewis's eyes "Don't laugh, old chap You don't knohat I did I let her fall into the water, and then I stood staring and let another man--the other man--save her"

"Well, and what about that? He had a better chance than you You shouldn't grudge hiood fortune"

"Good Lord,me! I felt murderous, but it wasn't on his account"

"Why not?" asked the olderwith you Whather whenthat it doesn't nerve me to action? I tell you I love her body and soul I live for her The whole world is full of her She is never a second out of hts And yet I am so little of a man that I let her come near death and never try to save her"

"But, confound it, man, it may have been mere absence of mind You were always an extraordinarily plucky chap" Wratislaw spoke irritably, for it seely "Can you not understand?" he cried

Wratislaw did understand, and suddenly The probleht Weakness was at the core of it, weakness revealed in self-deception and self-accusation alike, the weakness of the finical dreamer, the man with the unrobust conscience But the weakness which Lewis arraigned hi of the diffident and the irresolute Wratislaw tried the path of boisterous encouragement

"Get up, you old fool, and come down to the house You a coward! You are siedy" The hed out of this folly If he were not he would show the self-accusing front to the world, and the Manorwaters, Alice, Stocks--all save his chosen intimates--would credit him with a cowardice of which he had no taint