she said. "That is monstrous!"

"It is not of my making. It is the way the world is. I found it out
myself, and I tried to point it out to you."

"But it is horrible!" she cried. "I will not believe it. I will not
yield to such things. I will not be coward enough to give up a
friend for such a motive!"

"I know the feeling," said Montague. "I'd stand by you, if it were
another man than Stanley Ryder. But I know him better than you, I
believe."

"You don't, Allan, you can't!" she protested. "I tell you he is a
good man! He is a man nobody understands--"

Montague shrugged his shoulders. "It is possible," he said. "I have
heard that before. Many men are better than the things they do in
this world; at any rate, they like to persuade themselves that they
are. But you have no right to wreck your life out of pity for Ryder.
He has made his own reputation, and if he had any real care for you,
he would not ask you to sacrifice yourself to it."

"He did not ask me to," said Lucy. "What I have done, I have done of
my own free will. I believe in him, and I will not believe the
horrible things that you tell me."

"Very well," said Montague, "then you will have to go your own way."

He spoke calmly, though really his heart was wrung with grief. He