“I’m coming back in a moment.”

Scott restlessly resumed his book, raising his head from time to time as though listening for her return, fidgeting about, now examining the embroidery she had left on the lamp-lit table, now listlessly running over the pages that had claimed his close attention while she had been near him.

Across the hall, in the library, Duane stood absently twisting an unlighted cigar, and Kathleen, her hand on his shoulder, eyes lifted in sweet distress, was searching for words that seemed to evade her.

He cut the knot without any emotion: 

“I know what you are trying to say, Kathleen.  It is true that there has been a wretched misunderstanding, but if I know Geraldine at all I know that a mere misunderstanding will not do any permanent harm.  It is something else that—­worries me.”

“Oh, Duane, I know!  I know!  She cannot marry you—­in honour—­until that—­that terrible danger is eliminated.  She will not, either.  But—­don’t give her up!  Be with her—­with us in this crisis—­during it!  See us through it, Duane; she is well worth what she costs us both—­and costs herself.”

“She must marry me now,” he said.  “I want to fight this thing with all there is in me and in her, and in my love for her and hers for me.  I can’t fight it in this blind, aloof way—­this thing that is my rival—­that stands with its claw embedded in her body warning me back!  The horror of it is in the blind, intangible, abstract force that is against me.  I can’t fight it aloof from her; I can’t take her away from it unless I have her in my arms to guard, to inspire, to comfort, to watch.  Can’t you see, Kathleen, that I must have her every second of the time?”

“She will not let you run the risk,” murmured Kathleen.  “Duane, she had a dreadful night—­she broke down so utterly that it scared me.  She is horribly frightened; her nervous demoralisation is complete.  For the first time, I think, she is really terrified.  She says it is hopeless, that her will and nerve are undermined, her courage contaminated....  Hour after hour I sat with her; she made me tell her about her grandfather—­about what I knew of the—­the taint in her family.”

“Those things are merely predispositions,” he said.  “Self-command makes them harmless.”

“I told her that.  She says that they are living sparks that will smoulder while life endures.”

“Suppose they are,” he said; “they can never flame unless nursed....  Kathleen, I want to see her——­”

“She will not.”

“Has she spoken at all of me?”

“Yes.”

“Bitterly?”

“Y-yes.  I don’t know what you did.  She is very morbid just now, anyway; very desperate.  But I know that, unconsciously, she counts on an adjustment of any minor personal difficulty with you....  She loves you dearly, Duane.”

He passed an unsteady hand across his eyes.

“She must marry me.  I can’t stand aloof from this battle any longer.”