“If—­perhaps father——­”

“Your father?  No.  Above all persons, no.  That’s a suggestion I can’t consider for an instant.”

“But what will you do?” she exclaimed, nervously.

Lee glanced at her, then compressed his lips.

“I’m going away; I couldn’t stay here on the scene of this disaster.  It would be intolerable.  Before long people will be describing the unfinished project by the name of ‘Bryant’s Folly’, or the like.  Haven’t you seen old, windowless structures that were never completed, or grass-grown railroad enbankments never ironed, or rusting mine machinery never assembled?  Men’s failures, men’s ’follies’.”

“Lee, Lee!  It never will be so!” she cried.  “Nor will your project be a failure to me who have known how you’ve striven and sacrificed.”

Bryant looked past her and about the room, but his eyes in the end came back to hers.

“You have always been generous in your thoughts of me,” he said, in an unsteady voice.

“No more than you deserved.”

“Listen, Louise,” he went on, after a pause.  “This is the last time I shall see you for a long time, possibly for all time, and it’s of your kindness I wish to speak—­and of another matter.  Of course, I shouldn’t be quite human if I hadn’t complained a bit about this blow, but my complaints are done now.  I’ll possibly do some grimacing to myself hereafter, though.  What I came to say is that wherever I go in the future I’ll always carry with me as a treasure the memory of your goodness and of your face.”

Louise’s lips had parted, while the colour slowly receded from her cheeks.

“But we shall see each other,” she gasped.  “We’ll meet, we can keep in touch.”  After a silence there came in a whisper, “Friends should.”

Bryant began to tremble.  He turned away from her in order to gaze into the fire.  Her low utterance had wrung the chords of his heart; he dared not allow his eyes to continue to dwell upon her face.

“What good in that?” he asked.  Then he gave a passionate shake of his head.  “The risk for me is too great.  I shall seek an engineering billet altogether out of the country, in South America, in Asia, wherever one is open.  A job without responsibility, preferably.  No, no; I can’t remain and play with fire—­any longer.”

An intense stillness rested in the room after these words.  He doubted if Louise even breathed.

“Would it be that?” she asked, at last.

“Of course.  Haven’t you seen?”

“I—­I——­” Her voice failed her.

“I could no more help loving you, Louise, after I came to know you, than can the earth its blooming under a summer sun.  The thing was inevitable.”  He was speaking now in a slow, fixed attempt at restraint.  “And this love coming when it did, after I was betrothed to Ruth Gardner, is the capping madness of the whole nightmarish situation in which I find myself.  ‘Nightmarish’ isn’t an exaggeration, honestly.  By all the empty, senseless conventions I ought to seal my lips on my love and to go dumbly away, because I’m engaged to Ruth Gardner.”  He turned abruptly to her.  “Do you think I should?”