you see, less dreadful to me. And it may have pleased him that I pitied him.”

She was beside him on her feet, but still holding his hand—still with her arm supporting him. But though it all brought for him thus a dim light, “You ‘pitied’ him?” he grudgingly, resentfully asked.

“He has been unhappy, he has been ravaged,” she said.

“And haven’t I been unhappy? Am not I—you’ve only to look at me!—ravaged?”

“Ah I don’t say I like him better,” she granted after a thought. “But he’s grim, he’s worn—and things have happened to him. He doesn’t make shift, for sight, with your charming monocle.”

“No”—it struck Brydon; “I couldn’t have sported mine ‘down-town.’ They’d have guyed me there.”

“His great convex pince-nez—I saw it, I recognised the kind—is for his poor ruined sight. And his poor right hand—!”

“Ah!” Brydon winced—whether for his proved identity or for his lost fingers. Then, “He has a million a year,” he lucidly added. “But he hasn’t you.”

“And he isn’t—no, he isn’t—you!” she murmured, as he drew her to his breast.

 Prev. P 31/31