her, she--died."

"Yes--we must be married," Howard went on. "Why not? It is more convenient,
let us say."

Alice shook her head and put her cheek against his again and clasped his
fingers in hers. "No, my instinct is against it. Some day--perhaps. But not
now, not now. I want you. I want only you. We are together out here--out
beyond the pale. Inside, others would come in and--and surely come between
us. I want no others--none."




VII.

A LITTLE CANDLE GOES OUT.


Howard was now thirty years old. Park Row had long ceased talking of him as
a "coming man." While his style of writing was steadily improving, he wrote
with no fixed aim, wrote simply for the day, for the newspaper which dies
with the day of its date. Some of his acquaintances wondered why a man of
such ability should thus stand still. The less observant spoke of him as an
impressive example of the "journalistic blight." Those who looked deeper
saw the truth--a dangerous facility, a perilous inertia, a fatal
entanglement. Facility enabled him to earn a good living with ease, working
as he chose. Inertia prevented him from seeking opportunities for
advancement. Entanglement shut him off from the men and women of his own
kind who would have thrust opportunities upon him and compelled him.