“I needn’t go into what happened then,” he said.  “You saw me at my worst, and—­you conquered me.  You drove me out of your stronghold, and you locked the door.  I don’t know even now how you did it.  None but a good woman would have dared.  Do you know, when I came to my senses and knew what I had done, knew that I’d insulted you, killed your trust—­your love, made you despise me, I nearly shot myself?  It was Dot who kept me from that.  She guessed, I suppose.  And I went away—­I went right away into the Rockies—­and fought my devils there.  I came back saner than you have ever known me, to hear that you were free.  Can you believe that I actually told myself that you were mine—­mine for the winning?  I stretched out my hands to you across half the world, and I felt as if wherever you were I had somehow managed to reach and touch you.  It was exactly a year from the day I had first met you.”

“Ah, I remember!” Anne said, her voice quick with pain; but she did not tell him what she remembered.

He went on rapidly, as if she had not spoken.  “And then I came to you.  And—­I found—­I found Luke—­in possession.  Well, that was the end of everything for me.  I couldn’t help knowing that it was the best thing that could possibly happen to either of you.  And I—­well, I was just out of it.  I would have gone again that night, but Luke wouldn’t have it.  He suspected from the first, though I lied to him—­I lied royally.  But I couldn’t keep it up.  He was too many for me.  He wouldn’t let me drop out, but neither would I let him.  I fought every inch.  I wouldn’t let him die.  I held him night and day—­night and day.  I knew what it meant to you too, and I knew you would help me afterwards to drop out.  My whole soul was in it, but even so, I couldn’t hold on for ever.  I had to slacken at last, and he—­he slackened too.  I knew it directly, felt him losing hold.  That was two days before he died.  And I pulled myself together and grabbed him again.  I think he knew.  He tried to wake up, said he’d get well, made me let go of him, made me explain things to you.  And then—­well, I guess he thought his part was done—­so he just—­let go.”

Abruptly he turned from her and leaned again upon the rail, lodging his head on his hands.  “That’s all,” he said.  “But if Tawny had taken it into his fool brain to make an end of me a little sooner—­as I meant him to—­I know very well Luke would have hung on—­somehow—­for your sake.  Oh, I wish to heaven he had!” he burst out fiercely.  “I’m not fit to speak to you, not fit to touch your hand.  You—­you—­I believe you’d be kind to me if I would let you.  But I won’t—­I won’t!  I’m going away.  It rests with me now to protect you somehow, and there is no other way.”

He ceased to speak, and in the silence she watched his bent head, greatly wondering, deeply pitying.  When he stood up again she knew that the tumult that tore his soul had been forced down out of sight.