time--"

"No, I think not. I'm as the Lord made me." Craig laughed shortly,
unmusically. "It's merely my lot."

The girl hesitated, uncertain, at a loss for words. Distinctly for her
as though the brightness of the day had faded under a real shadow, it
altered now under the cloud of another's unhappiness. But one suggestion
presented itself; and innocently, instinctively as a mother comforts her
child, she drew nearer to the other in mute human sympathy.

The man did not move. Apparently he had not noticed.

"The time was," he went on monotonously, "when I thought differently,
when I fancied that some time, somewhere, I would meet a girl I
understood, who could understand me. But I never do. No matter how well
I become acquainted with women, we never vitally touch, never become
necessary to each other. It seems somehow that I'm the only one of my
kind, that I must go through life so--alone."

Nearer and nearer crept the girl; not as maid to man, but as one child
presses closer to another in the darkness. One of her companion's hands
lay listless on his knee, and instinctively, compellingly, she placed
her own upon it, pressed it softly.

"I am so selfish," she voiced contritely, "to tell you of my own love,
my own happiness. I didn't mean to hurt you. I simply couldn't help it,
it's such a big thing in my own life. I'm so sorry."

Just perceptibly Craig stirred; but still he did not look at her. When