“Glenn, I—­I—­” she stammered.  Her tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of her mouth.

“Soon?  Say yes, Nancy!  I’m crazy about you, don’t you know that?  Why don’t you say when, Nancy?”

She felt desperate, as if some force were closing in upon her, relentlessly.  She had to speak, and yet she couldn’t.  She tried to escape from the arms that held her, but they clasped her all the closer.  His eager lips closed on hers.

“Nancy!  Ah, darling, why not let everything go and marry me at once?”

Ah, why not, indeed?  As if Peter Champneys had reached across the sea to divide her and Glenn, a stern voice answered Glenn’s question.

“Because she has a husband already,” it said harshly.  Chalky white, with blazing eyes, Chadwick Champneys confronted Peter’s wife in another man’s arms.  “She is married to my nephew, Peter Champneys.  Is it possible you do not know?”

Glenn’s arms dropped.  Intuitively he moved away from her.  His visage blanched, and he stared at her strangely.

“Nancy, is this thing true?”

Nancy nodded.  She said in a lifeless voice:  “Oh yes, it’s true.  I was trying to tell you, but—­” And then she broke into a cry:  “Glenn, you don’t understand!  Glenn, listen, please listen!  I did love you, I do love you, Glenn!  You—­you don’t know—­you don’t understand—­”

The boy staggered.  He was an honorable, clean-souled boy, heir to old heritages of pride, and faith, and chivalry.  A dull, shamed red crept from cheek to brow, replacing his pallor.  His gesture, as he turned away from her, made her feel as if she had been struck across the face.  She winced.  She saw herself judged and condemned.

“Mr. Champneys,” stammered Glenn, painfully, “surely you know I didn’t understand—­don’t you?  I—­we—­fell in love, sir.  We’d meant to wait—­that’s why I didn’t come to you at once—­but I—­that is, I was very much in love with her, and I was going to make a clean breast of it and ask you what we’d better do.  And you’re not to think I’m—­dishonorable—­” he choked over the word.

Knowing the boy’s breed, Champneys laid a not unkindly hand on his shoulder.

“I see how it was,” he said.  “And—­I guess you’re punished enough, without any reproaches from me.”

Glenn turned to Nancy.  “Why did you do it?” he cried.  “I loved you, I trusted you.  Nancy, why did you do such a thing—­to me?”

She twisted her fingers.  Well, this was the end.  She was to be thrust out of the new brightness, back into the drab dreariness, the emptiness that was her fate.  She lifted tragic eyes.

“I never expected you to love me.  But when you did—­I just had to let you!  Nobody else cared—­ever.  And I loved you for loving me—­I couldn’t help it, Glenn; I couldn’t help it!” Her voice broke.  She stood there, twisting her fingers.