“I didn’t really mean that, Jack,” Betty muttered.

“I know you didn’t,” he returned gently.  “But I mean what I have just said.”

“You mean that for some reason which I do not know and which you will not tell me, there is such bad blood between you and my father that you can’t—­you won’t—­won’t even take a chance on me?”

“Something like that,” MacRae admitted.  “Only you put it badly.  You’d either tie my hands, which I couldn’t submit to, or you’d find yourself torn between two factions, and life would be a pretty sad affair.”

“I asked you once before, and you told me it was something that happened before either of us was born,” Betty said thoughtfully.  “I am going to get at the bottom of this somehow.  I wonder if you do really care, or if this is all camouflage,—­if you’re just playing with me to see how big a fool I will make of myself.”

That queer mistrust of him which suddenly clouded Betty’s face and made her pretty mouth harden roused Jack MacRae to an intolerable fury.  It was like a knife in a tender spot.  He had been stifling the impulse to forget and bury all these ancient wrongs and injustices for which neither of them was responsible but for which, so far as he could see, they must both suffer.  Something cracked in him at Betty’s words.  She jumped, warned by the sudden blaze in his eyes.  But he caught her with a movement quicker than her own.  He held her by the arms with fingers that gripped like iron clamps.  He shook her.

“You wonder if I really care,” he cried.  “My God, can’t you see?  Can’t you feel?  Must a man grovel and weep and rave?”

Betty whitened a little at this storm which she had evoked.  But she did not flinch.  Her eyes looked straight into his, fearlessly.

“You are raving now,” she said.  “And you are hurting my arms terribly.”

MacRae released his hold on her.  His hands dropped to his sides.

“I suppose I was,” he said in a flat, lifeless tone.  “But don’t say that to me again, ever.  You can say anything you like, Betty, except that I’m not in earnest.  I don’t deserve that.”

Betty retreated a little.  MacRae was not even looking at her now.  His eyes were turned to the sea, to hide the blur that crept into them in spite of his will.

“You don’t deserve anything,” Betty said distinctly.  She moved warily away as she spoke.  “You have the physical courage to face death; but you haven’t the moral courage to face a problem in living, even though you love me.  You take it for granted that I’m as weak as you are.  You won’t even give me a chance to prove whether love is strong or weak in the face of trouble.  And I will never give you another chance—­never.”