“Dear, if I knew that was so, I would give myself to him.  Neither you nor he have ever asked anything of me in vain.  Even if I did not love him—­as I do—­and he needed me, I would give myself to him.  You and he have been all there was in life for me.  But I am afraid that I may not always be all that life holds for him.  He is young; he has had no chance yet; he has had little experience with women.  I think he ought to have his chance.”

She might have said the same thing of herself.  A bride at her husband’s death-bed, widowed before she had ever been a wife, what experience had she?  All her life so far had been devoted to the girl who stood there confronting her, and to the brother.  What did she know of men?—­of whether she might be capable of loving some man more suitable?  She had not given herself the chance.  She never would, now.

There was no selfishness in Kathleen Severn.  But there was much in the Seagrave twins.  The very method of their bringing up inculcated it; they had never had any chance to be otherwise.  The “cultiwation of the indiwidool” had driven it into them, taught them the deification of self, forced them to consider their own importance above anything else in the world.

And it was of that importance that Geraldine was now thinking as she sat on the edge of her bed, darkly considering these new problems that chance was laying before her one by one.

If Scott was going to be unhappy without Kathleen, it followed, as a matter of course, that he must have Kathleen.  The chances Kathleen might take, what she might have to endure of the world’s malice and gossip and criticism, never entered Geraldine’s mind at all.

“If he is in love with you,” she repeated, “it settles it, I think.  What else is there to do but marry him?”

Kathleen shook her head.  “I shall do what is best for him—­whatever that may be.”

“You won’t make him unhappy, I suppose?” inquired Geraldine, astonished.

“Dear, a woman may be truer to the man she loves—­and kinder—­by refusing him.  Is not that what you have done—­for Duane’s sake?”

Geraldine sprang to her feet, face white, mouth distorted with anger: 

“I made a god of Duane!” she broke out breathlessly.  “Everything that was in me—­everything that was decent and unselfish and pure-minded dominated me when I found I loved him.  So I would not listen to my own desire for him, I would not let him risk a terrible unhappiness until I could go to him as clean and well and straight and unafraid as he could wish!” She laughed bitterly, and laid her hands on her breast.  “Look at me, Kathleen!  I am quite as decent as this god of mine.  Why should I worry over the chances he takes when I have chances enough to take in marrying him?  I was stupid to be so conscientious—­I behaved like a hysterical schoolgirl—­or a silly communicant—­making him my confessor!  A girl is a perfect fool to make a god out of a man.  I made one out of Duane; and he acted like one.  It nearly ended me, but, after all, he is no worse than I. Whoever it was who said that decency is only depravity afraid, is right.  I am depraved; I am afraid.  I’m afraid that I cannot control myself, for one thing; and I’m afraid of being unhappy for life if I don’t marry Duane.  And I’m going to, and let him take his chances!”