me blindly. I have a confession to make, I am not--I have not always
been"--he paused--"a good man," he said, in a low voice.

She started indignantly.

"How can you say that? You are the best, the kindest, the bravest man I
have ever met! Who but a good man would have risked his life to save me
from drowning?"

"Drowning?" Mortimer's voice seemed perplexed. "You? What do you mean?"

"Have you forgotten the time when I fell in the sea last week, and you
jumped in with all your clothes on----"

"Of course, yes," said Mortimer. "I remember now. It was the day I did
the long seventh in five. I got off a good tee-shot straight down the
fairway, took a baffy for my second, and---- But that is not the point.
It is sweet and generous of you to think so highly of what was the
merest commonplace act of ordinary politeness, but I must repeat, that
judged by the standards of your snowy purity, I am not a good man. I do
not come to you clean and spotless as a young girl should expect her
husband to come to her. Once, playing in a foursome, my ball fell in
some long grass. Nobody was near me. We had no caddies, and the others
were on the fairway. God knows----" His voice shook. "God knows I
struggled against the temptation. But I fell. I kicked the ball on to a
little bare mound, from which it was an easy task with a nice
half-mashie to reach the green for a snappy seven. Mary, there have
been times when, going round by myself, I have allowed myself ten-foot
putts on three holes in succession, simply in order to be able to say I
had done the course in under a hundred. Ah! you shrink from me! You are