“I shouldn’t express it in just those words, but it’s something like it.”

“Then I’ll marry you.  You give me a choice of evils, and I take the least.”

“Oh!  Then to marry me would be—­an evil?”

“What else do you make it?  You’ll admit that it’s a little difficult to keep pace with you.  You come to me one day accusing me of sin, and on another announcing my contrition, while on the third you may be in some entirely different mood about me.”

“You can easily render me ridiculous.  That’s due to my awkwardness of expression and not to anything wrong in the way I feel.”

“Oh, but isn’t it out of the heart that the mouth speaketh?  I think so.  You’ve advanced some excellent reasons why I should become your wife, and I can see that you’re quite capable of believing them.  At one time it was because I needed a home, at another because I needed protection, while to-day, I understand, it is because I love you.”

“Is this fair?”

“I dare say you think it isn’t; but then you haven’t been tried and judged half a dozen times, unheard, as I’ve been.  I’ll confess that you’ve shown the most wonderful ingenuity in trying to get me into a position where I should be obliged to marry you, whether I would or not; and now you’ve succeeded.  Whether the game is worth the candle or not is for you to judge; my part is limited to saying that you’ve won.  I’m ready to marry you as soon as you tell me when.”

“To save Dorothea?”

“To save Dorothea.”

“And for no other reason?”

“For no other reason.”

“Then, of course, I can’t keep you to your word.”

“You can’t release me from it except on one condition.”

“Which is—?”

“That Dorothea’s secret shall be kept.”

“I must use my own judgment about that.”

“On the contrary, you must use mine.  You’ve made me a proposal which I’m ready to accept.  As a man of honor you must hold to it—­or be silent.”

“Possibly,” he admitted, on reflection.  “I shall have to think it over.  But in that case we’d be just where we were—­”

“Yes; just where we were.”

“And you’d be without help or protection.  That’s the thought I can’t endure, Diane.  Try to be just to me.  If I make mistakes, if I flounder about, if I say things that offend you, it’s because I can’t rest while you’re exposed to danger.  Alone, as you are, in this great city, surrounded by people who are not your friends, a prey to criticism and misapprehension, when it is no worse, it’s as if I saw you flung into the arena among the beasts.  Can you wonder that I want to stand by you?  Can you be surprised if I demand the privilege of clasping you in my arms and saying to the world, This is my wife?  When Christian women were thrown to the lions there was once a heathen husband who leaped into the ring, to die at his wife’s side, because he could do no more.  That’s