“Oh, don’t say that.  Don’t say that,” she pleaded.  “You hurt me.”

“I can’t come, Miriam.  Don’t you see?  Isn’t it plain enough?  I can’t come.  I thought I could.  I tried to think I could hold you—­in spite of everything.  But I can’t.  I can’t.”

“You can hold me—­if I stay.  I want to stay.  You mustn’t let me go.  I want you to be happy.  You deserve it.  You’ve done so much for me—­and him.”

It was the stress she laid on the last word—­a suggestion of something triumphant and enraptured beyond restraint—­that made him bound back to the centre of the pavement.

“Go on, Laporte,” he said to the chauffeur, in a sharp voice.  “Miss Strange is ready.”

“No, no,” Miriam cried, stretching both hands toward him.  “I’m not ready.  Keep me.  I want to stay.”

“Go on!” he cried, sternly, as the chauffeur hesitated.  “Miss Strange is quite ready.  She must go.”

Standing by the curb, he watched the motor glide off into the misty, lamplit darkness.  He was watching it still, as it overtook the carriage in which Norrie Ford had just driven away.  As the two vehicles passed abreast out of his range of vision, he knew they were bearing Ford and Miriam side by side into Life.