Carrington made an involuntary gesture of protest.

“I can’t tell you that, dear—­for I don’t know.”  His voice was steady, but it came from lips that quivered.  He knew that he might have urged the supreme claim of his love and in her present desperate mood she would have listened, but the memory of Norton would have been between them always a shame and reproach; as surely as he stood there with his arms about her, as surely as she clung to him so warm and near, he would have lived to see the shadow of that shame in her eyes.

“I can not do it—­I can not, Bruce!” she panted.

“Dear—­dear—­don’t tempt me!” He held himself in check.

“I am going to tell you—­just this once, BruceI love you—­you are my own for this one moment out of my life!” and she abandoned herself to the passionate caressing with which he answered her.  “How can I give you up?” he said, his voice hoarse with emotion.  He put her from him almost roughly, and leaning against the trunk of a tree buried his face in his hands.  Betty watched him for a moment in wretched silence.

“Don’t feel so bad, Bruce,” she said brokenly.  “I am not worth it.  I tried not to love you—­I didn’t want to.”  She raised a white face to his.

“I am going now, Betty.  You—­you shouldn’t stay here any longer with me.”  He spoke with sudden resolution.

“And I shall not see you again?” she asked, in a low, stifled voice.

“It’s good-by—­” he muttered.

“Not yet—­oh, not yet, Bruce—­” she implored.  “I can not—­”

“Yes—­now, dear.  I don’t dare stay—­I may forget—­” but he turned again to her in entreaty.  “Give me something to remember in all the years that are coming when I shall be alone—­let me kiss you on the lips—­let me—­just this once—­it’s good-by we’re saying—­it’s good-by, Betty!”

She went to him, and, as he bent above her, slipped her arms about his neck.

“Kiss me—­” she breathed.

He kissed her hair, her soft cheek, then their lips met.

He helped her as she stumbled blindly along the path to the house, and half lifted her up the steps to the door.  They paused there for a moment.  At last he turned from her abruptly in silence.  A step away he halted.

“If you should ever need me—­”
“Never as now,” she said.

She saw his tall figure pass down the path, and her straining eyes followed until it was lost in the mild wide spaces of the night.

Another hot September sun was beating upon the earth as Betty galloped down the lane and swung her horse’s head in the direction of Raleigh.  Her grief had worn itself out and she carried a pale but resolute face.  Carrington was gone; she would keep her promise to Charley and he should never know what his happiness had cost her.  She nerved herself for their meeting; somewhere between Belle Plain and Thicket Point Norton would be waiting for her.