Part 48 (1/2)

”You--you”--she trembled aghast--”you would n't dare repeat what I've told you!”

”You don't want to stagger on in the dark any longer. You'll let me tell him.”

She rose to her feet, her face white.

”Peter,” she said slowly, ”if ever you told him that, I'd never forgive you. If ever you told him, I 'd deny it. You 'd only force me into more lies. You'd only crush me lower.”

”Steady, Marjory,” he said.

”You're wonderful, Peter!” she exclaimed. ”You 've--you 've been seeing visions. But when you speak of telling him what I've told you, you don't understand how terrible that would be. Peter--you'll promise me you won't do that?”

She was pleading, with panic in her eyes.

”Yet, if he knew, he'd come racing to you.”

”He'd do that because he's a gentleman and four-square. He'd come to me and pretend. He'd feel himself at fault, and pity me. Do you know how it hurts a woman to be pitied? I'd rather he'd hate me. I'd rather he'd forget me altogether.”,

”But what of the talks I had with him in the dark?” he questioned. ”When he talked to me of you then, it was not in pity.”

”Because,”--she choked,--”because he does n't know himself as I know him.

He--he does n't like changes--dear Monte. It disturbed him to go because it would have been so much easier to have stayed. So, for the moment, he may have been--a bit sentimental.”

”You don't think as little of him as that!” he cried.

”He--he is the man who married me,” she answered unsteadily. ”It was--just Monte who married me--honest, easy-going, care-free Monte, who is willing to do a woman a favor even to the extent of marrying her. He is very honest and very gallant and very normal. He likes one day to be as another. He does n't wish to be stirred up. He asked me this, Peter: 'Is n't it possible to care without caring too much?' And I said, 'Yes.'

That was why he married me. He had seen others who cared a great deal, and they frightened him. They cared so much that they made themselves uncomfortable, and he feared that.”

”Good Lord, you call that man Covington?” exclaimed Peter.

”No--just Monte,” Marjory answered quickly. ”It's just the outside of him. The man you call Covington--the man inside--is another man.”

”It's the real man,” declared Peter.

”Yes,” she nodded, with a catch in her voice. ”That's the real man.

But--don't you understand?--it was n't that man who married me. It was Monte who married me to escape Covington. He trusted me not to disturb the real man, just as I trusted him not to disturb the real me.”

Peter leaned forward with a new hope in his eyes.

”Then,” he said, ”perhaps, after all, he did n't get to the real you.”

Quite simply she replied:--

”He did, Peter. He does not know it, but he did.”

”You are sure?”

She knew the pain she was causing him, but she answered:--