“And you”—­Maggie drove herself on—­“don’t you ever want to see her?”

“Of course I do.  But at the very beginning I fixed things so I could not; so that I would not even know where she is.  Removed temptation from myself, you see.  Don’t you see the possible results if I should try to see her?  Something might happen that would bring out the truth, and that would ruin her happiness, her career.  Don’t you see?”

His gray eyes, bright with his great dream, were fixed intently upon Maggie; and yet she felt that they were gazing far beyond her at some other girl . . . at his girl.

“I—­I—­” she gulped and swayed and would have fallen if he had not been quick to catch her arm.

“You are sick, Miss?” he asked anxiously.

“I—­I have been,” she stammered, trying to regain control of her faculties.  “It’s—­it’s that—­and my not eating—­and standing in this hot sun.  Thank you very much for what you’ve told me.  I’d—­I’d better be getting back.”

“I’ll help you.”  And very gently, with a firm hand under one arm, he escorted her to the bench where Larry sat scribbling nothings.  He then raised his hat and returned to his dahlias.

“Well?” queried Larry when they were alone.

“I can’t stand it to stay here and talk to these people,” she replied in an agonized whisper.  “I must get away from here quick, so that I can think.”

“May I come with you?”

“No, Larry—­I must be alone.  Please, Larry, please get into the house, and manage to fake a telephone message for me, calling me back to New York at once.”

“All right.”  And Larry hurried away.  She sat, pale, breathing rapidly, her whole being clenched, staring fixedly out at the Sound.  Five minutes later Larry was back.

“It’s all arranged, Maggie.  I’ve told the people; they’re sorry you’ve got to go.  And Dick is getting his car ready.”

She turned her eyes upon him.  He had never seen in them such a look.  They were feverish, with a dazed, affrighted horror.  She clutched his arm.

“You must promise never to tell my father about me!”

“I won’t.  Unless I have to.”

“But you must not!  Never!” she cried desperately.  “He thinks I’m—­Oh, don’t you understand?  If he were to learn what I really am, it would kill him.  He must keep his dream.  For his sake he must never find out, he must keep on thinking of me just the same.  Now, you understand?”

Larry slowly nodded.

Her next words were dully vibrant with stricken awe.  “And it means that I can never have him for my father!  Never!  And I think—­I’d—­I’d like him for a father!  Don’t you see?”

Again Larry nodded.  In this entirely new phase of her, a white-faced, stricken, shivering girl, Larry felt a poignant sympathy for her the like of which had never tingled through him in her conquering moods.  Indeed Maggie’s situation was opening out into great human problems such as neither he nor any one else had ever foreseen!