"If I love you?" Nan cried, with trembling lips. "Don't speak that way.

If you only knew! My love for you has kept me alive through all that I've endured. It's the only thing that's worth the struggle; but I can't think. Your demand is so sudden, so stunning, so terrifying, I don't know what to say. My life and all I have is too short to make atonement to you and I can't afford to make a mistake. I want to be sure. A year from now you might see things differently."

"We can never be anything to each other," he answered firmly, "on any other terms than the renunciation of all that Bivens leaves. I don't care what you do with it, just so you wash your hands of it. You and I must begin life just where we left off when the shadow of his money darkened the world for us both. You must give it up."

"It's hard, dearest," she said with a sob, "for your sake it's hard.

I've dreamed so many wonderful things that would come to pass when I made you the master of these millions."

"You must choose between his money and my love; you can't have both."

She gazed at him with a desperate yearning.

"I'll do anything you wish, only love me, dearest," she sobbed. "I am yours, body and soul, all that I am and all that I have. You can do with it as you please! All I ask is to be loved--loved--loved--and that you never leave me!"

But even as she spoke, her mind was made up. She would reserve at least half her fortune secretly. When they were married she could persuade him to be reasonable.

"All right, then it's settled, but it must be everything with me or nothing. I won't shake hands with my friend and make love to his wife.

You must cease to be his wife now."

"But how--what do you mean?" she asked, white with sudden fear.

"Leave your husband, your palaces, your millions and join me to-morrow night on the Limited for New York. Bring only a change of clothes in a single trunk and a hand-bag. My money must be sufficient. I'll wire for passage on an outgoing steamer. We'll spend two years in Europe and return to America when we please. Are you ready?"

"Oh, Jim, dear," she faltered--"you know that would be madness!"

"Certainly it's madness, the madness of a great love! Come, why do you hesitate?"

The lines of her body relaxed and she began to softly sob. The man waited in silence for her to speak.

"I've done you harm enough, dearest," she said at last. "I can't do this."

"And your thought is only of me, Nan?" he asked with piercing intensity.

"And of myself," she acknowledged brokenly. "I couldn't do such an insane, vulgar thing."

"I didn't think you could," was the bitter response.

"All I ask," she pleaded, "is to hear you say that you love me now--just as I am with all my faults. Can't we be patient and yet honest with one another in the secret world in which our real lives are lived? In that world I am yours, and you are mine, but a woman's heart starves at last for the words of love, she must have them or die."

"Well, I shall not speak," he answered savagely. "Your husband is the master of millions, but I am the master of something bigger--I am the master of myself."

He paused, lowered his head and looked at her through his heavy eyebrows drawn down for the moment a veil over his soul.

"You must remember," he went on slowly, "that there's something inside a real man that claims one woman all his own. No man ever surrenders this ideal without the death of his self-respect. I will not play a second fiddle to your little husband. There's something that seals my lips, the soul of my soul, the thing that says 'I will' and 'I will not,' the power that links me to the infinite and eternal."

The strong face glowed with emotion. The utter sincerity of his deep vibrant tones were at last convincing. The dark head dropped lower.

When she lifted it at last two despairing tears were shining in her eyes.

"I understand, Jim," she said simply, "We will go on as we have. I'll wait in silence."

He rose and lifted her to her feet. The voices of the youngsters rang up the mountain's side.

"No, we can't go on like this now, Nan," he said with quiet strength.

"The silence has been broken between us. Your husband is my friend, and from to-day our lives must lie apart. It's the only way."

She extended her hand and he pressed it tenderly. Her voice was the merest sobbing whisper when she spoke: "Yes, Jim, I suppose it's the only way."

CHAPTER VIII

THE WHITE MESSENGER

In spite of Bivens's protest Stuart returned to New York on the first train the morning after the coaching party reached the house.

"Stay a week longer," the little man urged, "and I'll go with you; we'll go together, all of us, in my car. I'm getting worse here every day. I've got to get back to my doctors in New York."

"I'm sorry, Cal," he answered quickly, "but I must leave at once."

Nan allowed him to go without an effort to change his decision. A strange calm had come over her. She drove to the station with him in silence. He began to wonder what it meant.

As he stepped from the machine she extended her hand, with a tender smile, and said in low tones:

"Until we meet again."

He pressed it gently and was gone.

He reached New York thoroughly exhausted and blue. The struggles through which he had passed had left him bruised. He spent a sleepless night on the train fighting its scenes over and over. He had told her their relations on any terms must cease, and yet he knew instinctively that another struggle was possible on her return. He made up his mind at once to avoid this meeting.

The sight of Harriet seated on the stoop of the old home by the Square watching a crowd of children play brought a smile back to his haggard face.

He waved to her a block away and she sprang to her feet answering with a cry of joy. The startling contrast between the women struck him again. She met him at the corner with outstretched hands.

"What a jolly scene, little pal!" he cried. "What's the kid's convention about?"

"They've come to honour me with their good wishes on my voyage."

"What voyage?" he asked in surprise.

"Oh, you didn't know--I've an engagement to sing on the Continent this summer--the news came the day you left. Isn't that fine? I sail next week."

A sudden idea struck him. He dropped the bag he was carrying and exclaimed:

"By George, it is just the thing!"

"What?" she asked with a puzzled look.

"Let me go with you, girlie?"