then dropped her eyes. What lay that way?

"You are clear now, respected, respectable," she said simply.

"Yes, thank God. Clear and with a new ambition, thanks to you."

She had been expecting this ever since that last night. The relief
of Murray to feel that the old score that would have ruined him was
now wiped off the slate was precisely what she had anticipated.

Yet, somehow, it disappointed her. She felt instinctively that her
triumph was burning fast to ashes.

"Keep clear," she faltered.

"Constance," he urged, approaching closer and taking her cold hand.

Was she to be the one to hold him back in any way from the new life
that was now before him? What if Drummond, in his animosity, ever
got the truth? She gently unclasped her hand from his. No, that
happiness was not for her.

"I am afraid I am a crook at heart, Murray," she said sadly. "I have
gone too far to turn back. The brand is on me. But I am not
altogether bad--yet. Think of me always with charity. Yes," she
cried wildly, "I must return to my loneliness. No, do not try to
stop me, you have no right," she added bitterly as the reality of
her situation burned itself into her heart.

She broke away from him wildly, but with set purpose. The world had