"Yes--I love you," he returned, deliberately. "And in spite of all you
say--very probably more than you love me. . . . But you, like all women,
make love and its expression the sole object of life. Carley, I have been
concerned with keeping my body from the grave and my soul from hell."

"But--dear--you're well now?" she returned, with trembling lips.

"Yes, I've almost pulled out."

"Then what is wrong?"

"Wrong?--With me or you," he queried, with keen, enigmatical glance upon
her.

"What is wrong between us? There is something."

"Carley, a man who has been on the verge--as I have been--seldom or never
comes back to happiness. But perhaps--"

"You frighten me," cried Carley, and, rising, she sat upon the arm of his
chair and encircled his neck with her arms. "How can I help if I do not
understand? Am I so miserably little? . . . Glenn, must I tell you? No
woman can live without love. I need to be loved. That's all that's wrong
with me."

"Carley, you are still an imperious, mushy girl," replied Glenn, taking her
into his arms. "I need to be loved, too. But that's not what is wrong with
me. You'll have to find it out yourself."