The embarrassment had wholly passed from her manner.  She was eager and ingenuous as a child.  And yet there was something in her—­a depth of feeling, a concentration half-revealed—­that made him aware of her womanhood.  She was never confidential with him, but yet he felt her confidence in every word she uttered.

And the life that had ebbed so low turned in the man’s veins and began to flow with a steady, rising surge of which he was only vaguely conscious.

Molly had become his keenest interest.  He had ceased to think with actual pain of the woman who had loved his strength, but had shrunk in horror from his weakness.  His bitterness had seemed to disperse with the fragments of her torn letter.  It was only a memory to him now—­scarcely even that.

“This place has done me a lot of good,” he said to Molly one day.  “I have written to my friend Gregory Mountfort to come and see me.  He is my doctor.”

She looked up at him quickly.  She was sitting on her doorstep and the August sunlight was on her hair.  There were wonderful glints of gold among the dark curls.

“Shall you go away, then?” she asked.

“I may—­soon,” he said.

She was silent, bending over some work that she had taken up.  The man looked down at the bowed head.  The old look of perplexity, of wonder, was in his eyes.

“What shall you do?” he said abruptly.

She made a startled movement, but did not raise her eyes.

“I shall just—­go on,” she said, in a voice that was hardly audible.

“Not here,” he said.  “You will be lonely.”

There was an unusual note of mastery in his voice.  She glanced up, and met his eyes resolutely for a moment.

“I am used to loneliness,” she said slowly.

“But you don’t prefer it?” he said.

She bent her head again.

“Yes, I prefer it,” she said.

There followed a pause.  Then abruptly Durant asked a question.

“Are you still sorry for me?” he said.

“No,” said Molly.

He bent slightly towards her.  Movement had become much easier to him of late.

“Molly,” he said very gently, “that is the kindest thing you have ever said.”

She laughed in a queer, shaky note over her work.

He bent nearer.

“You have done a tremendous lot for me,” he said, speaking very softly.  “I wonder if I dare ask of you—­one thing more?”

She did not answer.  He put his hand on her shoulder.

“Molly,” he said, “will you marry me?”

“No,” said Molly under her breath.

“Ah!” he said.  “Forgive me for asking!”

She looked up at him then with that in her eyes which he could not understand.

“Mr. Durant,” she said, steadily, “I thank you very much, and it isn’t—­that.  But I can only be your friend.”

“Never anything more, Molly?” he said, and he smiled at her, very gently, very kindly, but without tenderness.