The woman’s lashes glistened with a sudden moisture.  “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather be—­quite alone?  Isn’t it rather sacred to you?”

“That is why I want you,” he eagerly declared.  “It will be something to remember afterward.”

They went in, and for a moment the girl stood there gasping at the magnificence of this place, of which she had read descriptions, but which she had never seen.  Then her eyes flooded and, with a sense of revelation, she forgave him every frailty and fault—­even the isolated horror of longing she had been carrying in her heart.  So sensitive a soul as his could not have been expected to stand out Spartan-bold against the voluptuary blandishments of such surroundings—­and such a life.  He looked at her for a long while and once, unseen by her, he put out his arms, but caught them back again with a swift gesture and shook his head.  Now he knew in all bitterness what Loraine Haswell and his own cowardice had cost him—­and it was too late.

Loraine Haswell and his own cowardice!  He had not fully realized it before, but from that episode when he fled to Hamilton from his lunch with her had sprung the root of every succeeding chapter of tragedy—­and for her he had lost Marcia!  Then he led her to a place of vantage and went to the keyboard.

Never had Paul Burton played like that before, for as the music swelled and pealed through the place, his heart was singing its swan song.  In a moment of manhood beyond his moral stature he had drawn back arms that were hungry for her—­and he now knew, too late, that there was no one else who counted.  But the organ was not so repressive, and as she listened she knew that the tragedy was not hers alone.  While his fingers strayed to the improvising of his yearning and despair the woman sat spellbound, and finally he swung into that tritest of time-worn airs, “Home, Sweet Home.”

A gasp came into Marcia’s throat.

As Paul Burton left his seat and came down to her, his face was drawn and he said bluntly, “She is here today.”

She did not have to ask details or if it was ended.  The music had told her everything.  In a sudden gust of feeling and wrath against this woman who had stood between her and happiness, she wanted to say bitter things—­but she only nodded.

“Now that matters have turned out as they have,” the man spoke deliberately, but tensely, “I sha’n’t see you again.  Now that I’m a bankrupt and it’s all over, Marcia, I want you to know that I love you—­that I love you without doubt or hesitation.  In this world and whatever other worlds there are, there is only you ... you whom I lost because the coward must lose every good thing life holds.”  He broke off and asked very humbly, “Just in farewell—­may I kiss you—­once more?”

With a torrent of sobs she came into his arms.  “From the first,” she declared, “I’ve been just yours.  I’ve never thought of myself except as yours.  Take me!  Poverty doesn’t frighten me.  I’ve known it too long—­it’s almost like an old friend.  Let’s fight our way back together.”