His arms tightened about her, and a voice that was not unlike John Keith’s voice said:  “Yes, I want you!  I want you!”

X

For a space Keith did not raise his head.  The girl’s arms were about him close, and he could feel the warm pressure of her cheek against his hair.  The realization of his crime was already weighing his soul like a piece of lead, yet out of that soul had come the cry, “I want you—­I want you!” and it still beat with the voice of that immeasurable yearning even as his lips grew tight and he saw himself the monstrous fraud he was.  This strange little, wonderful creature had come to him from out of a dead world, and her lips, and her arms, and the soft caress of her hands had sent his own world reeling about his head so swiftly that he had been drawn into a maelstrom to which he could find no bottom.  Before McDowell she had claimed him.  And before McDowell he had accepted her.  He had lived the great lie as he had strengthened himself to live it, but success was no longer a triumph.  There rushed into his brain like a consuming flame the desire to confess the truth, to tell this girl whose arms were about him that he was not Derwent Conniston, her brother, but John Keith, the murderer.  Something drove it back, something that was still more potent, more demanding, the overwhelming urge of that fighting force in every man which calls for self-preservation.

Slowly he drew himself away from her, knowing that for this night at least his back was to the wall.  She was smiling at him from out of the big chair, and in spite of himself he smiled back at her.

“I must send you to bed now, Mary Josephine, and tomorrow we will talk everything over,” he said.  “You’re so tired you’re ready to fall asleep in a minute.”

Tiny, puckery lines came into her pretty forehead.  It was a trick he loved at first sight.

“Do you know, Derry, I almost believe you’ve changed a lot.  You used to call me ‘Juddy.’  But now that I’m grown up, I think I like Mary Josephine better, though you oughtn’t to be quite so stiff about it.  Derry, tell me honest—­are you afraid of me?”

“Afraid of you!”

“Yes, because I’m grown up.  Don’t you like me as well as you did one, two, three, seven years ago?  If you did, you wouldn’t tell me to go to bed just a few minutes after you’ve seen me for the first time in all those—­those—­Derry, I’m going to cry!  I am!”

“Don’t,” he pleaded.  “Please don’t!”

He felt like a hundred-horned bull in a very small china shop.  Mary Josephine herself saved the day for him by jumping suddenly from the big chair, forcing him into it, and snuggling herself on his knees.

“There!” She looked at a tiny watch on her wrist.  “We’re going to bed in two hours.  We’ve got a lot to talk about that won’t wait until tomorrow, Derry.  You understand what I mean.  I couldn’t sleep until you’ve told me.  And you must tell me the truth.  I’ll love you just the same, no matter what it is.  Derry, Derry, why did you do it?”