“You can have no idea, how real, how vivid, how vital a part of my life Lucy became to me.  She was in the very deepest truth my better self, for years.  And then this summer, a miracle occurred!  Lucy walked into my office!  Beauty, serenity, intelligence, sweetness, gaiety, and gallantry—­these were Lucy’s in the flesh as I could not even dream for Lucy of the spirit.  Only in one particular though had I made an actual error.  Her name was not Lucy, it was Diana!  Diana! the little girl of Bright Angel who had entered my turbulent boyish heart, all unknown to me, never to leave it! . . .  Diana!  Lucy!  I love you and God help me, I must not marry!”

Enoch, his nails cutting deep into his palms turned from the river, at which he had been staring steadily while speaking, to Diana.  Her eyes which had been fastened on Enoch’s profile, now gazed deep into his, pain speaking to pain, agony to agony.

“If,” Enoch went on, huskily, “there is no probability of your growing to care for me, then I think our friendship can endure.  I can crowd back the lover and be merely your friend.  But if you might grow to care, even ever so little, then, I think at the thought of your pain, my heart would break.  So, I thought before it is too late—­”

Suddenly Diana’s lips which had grown white, trembled a little.  “It is too late!” she whispered.  “It is too late!” and she put her slender, sunburned hands over her face.

“Don’t!  Oh, don’t!” groaned Enoch.  He took her hands down, gently.  Diana’s eyes were dry.  Her cheeks were burning.  Enoch looked at her steadily, his breath coming a little quickly, then he rose and with both her hands in his lifted her to her feet.

“Do you love me, Diana?” he whispered.

She looked up into his eyes.  “Yes, Enoch!  Oh, yes!” she answered, brokenly.

“How much do you love me, dear?” he persisted.

She smiled with a tragic beauty in droop of lips and anguish of eyes.  “With all there is in me to give to love, Enoch.”

“Then,” said Enoch, “this at least may be mine,” and he laid his lips to hers.

When he lifted his head, he smoothed her hair back from her face.  “Remember, I am not deceiving myself, Diana,” he said huskily.  “I have acted like a selfish, unprincipled brute.  If I had not, in Washington, let you see that I cared, you would have escaped all this.”

“I did not want to escape it, Enoch,” she said, smiling again while her lips quivered.  “Yet I thought I would have strength enough to go away, without permitting you to tell me about it.  But I was not strong enough.  However,” stepping away from Enoch, “now we both understand, and I’ll go home.  And we must never see each other again, Enoch.”

“Never see each other again!” he repeated.  Then his voice deepened.  “Go about our day’s work year after year, without even a memory to ease the gnawing pain.  God, Diana, do you think we are machines to be driven at will?”