I cannot give up what is offered--for you!--dearly, dearly as I do love you!" She turned and caught his hands in hers, flushed, trembling, unstrung.

"I cannot--I simply cannot! How can you love me and listen to such wickedness?
How can you still care for such a girl as I am--worse than mercenary, because I have a heart--or had, until you took it! Keep it; it is the only part of me not all ignoble." "I will keep it--in trust," he said, "until you give yourself with it." But she only shook her head wearily, withdrawing her hands from his, and for a time they sat silent, eyes apart.
Then--"There is another reason," she said wistfully.
He looked up at her, hesitated, and--"My habits ?" he asked simply.
"Yes." "I have them in check." "Are you--certain ?" "I think I may be--now." "Yet," she said timidly, "you lost one fight--since you knew me." The dull red mantling his face wrung her heart.

She turned impulsively and laid both hands on his shoulders.

"That chance I would take, with all its uncertainty, all the dread inheritance you have come into.

I love you enough for that; and if it turned out that--that you could not stem the tide, even with me to face it with you; and if the pity of it, the grief of it, killed me, I would take that chance--if you loved me through it all.