"What will happen to me," he announced firmly, "is that I will plain
DIE! As long as I can see you, as long as I have the chance to try and
make you understand that no one can possibly love you as I do, and as
long as I know I am worrying you to death, and no one else is, I still
hope. I've no right to hope, still I do. And that one little chance
keeps me alive. But Egypt! If you escape to Egypt, what hold will I have
on you? You might as well be in the moon. Can you imagine me writing
love-letters to a woman in the moon? Can I send American Beauty roses
to the ruins of Karnak? Here I can telephone you; not that I ever have
anything to say that you want to hear, but because I want to listen to
your voice, and to have you ask, 'Oh! is that YOU?' as though you were
glad it WAS me. But Egypt! Can I call up Egypt on the long-distance? If
you leave me now, you'll leave me forever, for I'll drown myself in Lone
Lake."

The day she sailed away he went to the steamer, and, separating her from
her friends and family, drew her to the side of the ship farther from
the wharf, and which for the moment, was deserted. Directly below a
pile-driver, with rattling of chains and shrieks from her donkey-engine,
was smashing great logs; on the deck above, the ship's band was braying
forth fictitious gayety, and from every side they were assailed by the
raucous whistles of ferry-boats. The surroundings were not conducive
to sentiment, but for the first time Polly Kirkland seemed a little
uncertain, a little frightened; almost on the verge of tears, almost
persuaded to surrender. For the first time she laid her hand on
Ainsley's arm, and the shock sent the blood to his heart and held him
breathless. When the girl looked at him there was something in her eyes
that neither he nor any other man had ever seen there.

"The last thing I tell you," she said, "the thing I want you to