Waterbury evening Democrat., 1908-01-14

you make 1t so hard for me! How can you force me to this shame"
 "Shame?" he repeated vaguely.
 -"Yes: this treachery to myself when l cannot hope to be more to you, when I dare not love you too much!'
 "You must dare, Sylvia"
 'No, no, no. I know myself, I tell you! I cannot give up what is offered flor you-dearly, dearly as do love youw She turned and caught his hands in hers, flushed. trembling. un- strung T cannot-I simply cannot! How can you love me and listen to such wickedness? How can you still care for such girl as I am-worse than mercenary because have heart --or had until you took it? Keep it. It is the only part of me not all ig- noble"
 T 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 time they sat silent, eyes apart.
 Then-"There is another reason," she said wisfully.
 He looked at her, hesitated, and "My habits?" he asked simply.
 "Yes."
 'I have them in check"
 "Are you certain?"
 q think I may be-now."
 "Yet," she said timidly, you lost one 6ght-since you knew me-"
 The dull red mantling his face wrung her heart She turned impulsively and laid both hands on his shoulders. 'That chance would take, with all it's uncertainty, all the dread inheritance you have come into. love you enough for that. And if it turned out that that you could not stem the tide even with me to face it with you, and if the pity of it, the grief of 1t, killed me would take that chance if you loved me through it all. But there is some thing else Hush! Let me have my say while find the words-something else you do not understand. Turn your face a little Please don't look at me. This is what you do not know-that in three generations every woman of my race has-gone wrongl Every one! And I am beginning with such a mar riage, deliberately. selfshly, shameless ly, perfectly conscious of the frivolous, cratic blood in me, aware of the race record behind me!
 "Once when I knew nothing-before IT met you-I believed such d mar riage would not only permit me men, tai tranquility, but safely anchor me in the harbor of convention, leaving me free to become what am fashioned to become-autocrat and arbiter in my own world. And now! And now! I don't know-truly I don't know what may become. Your love forces my hand. am displaying all the shallow ness. falseness, pettiness. all the mean and cruel and callous character which must be truly my real self. Only 1 shall not marry youl You are not to run the risk of what might prove to be when I remember in bitterness all have renounced. If I married you, I should remember, unreconciled, what you cost me. Better for you and for me that marry him and let him bear with me when remember that he cost me you"'
 Suddenly deep within him something seemed to fail, die out, perhaps a tiny newly lighted flame of unaccustomed purity, the dawning flicker of aspira- tion to better things. Whatever it was. material. spiritual, was gone now, and where it had glimmered for a night the old accustomed twilit doubt crept ln-the same dull acquiescence, the same uncertainty of self, the familiar lack of will. of incentive, the congenIal tendency to drift, and with it came weariness, perhaps reaction from the recent skirnishes with that master vice.
 '1 suppose" he said in a dull voice, ryou are right"
 'rNo; I am wrong-wrung" she said, sffting her lovely face and heavy eyes. 'But have chosen my path. And you will forget
 q hope SO" he said simply.
 ''If you hope so. you will"
 Mortimer. peeping down st them over the thicket above, yawned impa- tiently and glanced about him for the most convenient avenue of self erace- ment when the time arrived.