Her voice died away.  Her fingers began fidgeting with the arm of the chair, her eyes bent upon them.

He looked at her a moment irresolute, his face working.  Then he said huskily—­

“In return—­for that—­I’ll tell you—­I must tell you the real truth about myself.  I don’t think you know me yet—­and I don’t know myself.  I’ve got a great brutal force in me somewhere—­that wants to brush everything—­that hinders me—­or checks me—­out of my path.  I don’t know that I can control it—­that I can make a woman happy.  It’s an awful risk for you.  Look at that poor fellow!” He flung out his hand towards that distant room whence came every now and then a fresh wave of music.  “I didn’t intend to do him any bodily harm—­”

“Of course not!  It was an accident!” cried Connie passionately.

“Perhaps—­strictly.  But I did mean somehow to crush him—­to make it precious hot for him—­just because he’d got in my way.  My will was like a steel spring in a machine—­that had been let go.  Suppose I felt like that again, towards—­”

“Towards me?” Connie opened her eyes very wide, puckering her pretty brow.

“Towards some one—­or something—­you care for.  We are certain to disagree about heaps of things.”

“Of course we are.  Quite certain!”

“I tell you again”—­said Falloden, speaking with a strong simplicity and sincerity that was all the time undoing the impression he honestly desired to make—­“It’s a big risk for you—­a temperament like mine—­and you ought to think it over seriously.  And then”—­he paused abruptly in front of her, his hands in his pockets—­“why should you—­you’re so young!—­start life with any burden on you?  Why should you?  It’s preposterous!  I must look after Otto all his life.”

“So must I!” said Connie quickly.  “That’s the same for both of us.”

“And then—­you may forget it—­but I can’t.  I repeat—­I’m a pauper.  I’ve lost Flood.  I’ve lost everything that I could once have given you.  I’ve got about four thousand pounds left—­just enough to start me at the bar—­when I’ve paid for the Orpheus.  And I can’t take a farthing from my mother or the other children.  I should be just living upon you.  How do I know that I shall get on at the bar?”

Connie smiled; but her lips trembled.

“Do think it over,” he implored; and he walked away from her again, as though to leave her free.

There was a silence.  He turned anxiously to look at her.

“I seem”—­said Connie, in a low voice that shook—­“to have kissed somebody—­for nothing.”

That was the last stroke.  He came back to her, and knelt beside her, murmuring inarticulate things.  With a sigh of relief, Connie subsided upon his shoulder, conscious through all her emotion of the dear strangeness of the man’s coat against her cheek.  But presently, she drew herself away, and looked him in the eyes, while her own swam.

“I love you”—­she said deliberately—­“because—­well, first because I love you!—­that’s the only good reason, isn’t it; and then, because you’re so sorry.  And I’m sorry too.  We’ve both got to make up—­we’re going to make up all we can.”  Her sweet face darkened.  “Oh, Douglas, it’ll take the two of us—­and even then we can’t do it!  But we’ll help each other.”