He caught her hand, pressed it.  She glanced at him without replying, looked away, back again.  Her bosom rose and fell with a slow and tremulous movement, as though stirring with deep, soundless sighs.  A little smile hovered on her lips, tender, rapturous.

But at length she withdrew her hand, while the soft gladness passed from her face.

“It cannot be; you must go, Lee,” she said.

Bryant remembered—­and felt the ice forming about his heart.  He shivered slightly.  The full cruelty of the situation was reached.  Ruth Gardner not only held him, but he held her as well by a thread to which she could cling for safety against the blandishments of scoundrels, and her own desires, and the dark uncertainty of the future.  And much as he loved Louise Graham, he could not snap that thread; much as he detested Ruth, he lacked the flintiness of heart to let her slip into the abyss.  Nor would Louise have it otherwise.

She was seeking his eyes, questioning them.

“Well, this hour is worth it all to me,” he said, calmly.  “All of the unhappiness of the past, and all the loneliness of the future!  I am poor now; in that fact lies what hope I have.”

A gentle inclination of her head answered him.

“I am happy to-night, anyway,” said she.

“The only thing for me to do is to remain away from you,” he answered.  “Heaven knows I shall be miserable enough then, but I should grow desperate if I were near.”

“I know.  We mustn’t see each other, Lee dear.”

He walked to where his storm coat and cap lay on a chair by the door.  In silence he drew on and buttoned the former.  She had accompanied him to the spot and watched with moisture on her lashes his preparation for departure.  His eyes were lowered while his fingers were engaged with the buttons.

“You should understand about this,” he said, grimly.  “That man Gretzinger is after her.  She has no money, no training to earn money, is crazy for pleasure and attention and clothes.  I ought in all decency to break our engagement.  She has given me grounds enough.  But it’s keeping her straight.  If I broke it”—­his hand dropped to his side and he stood for a moment quite still—­“he drags her under.”  His gaze rose to hers.

“I guessed it long ago,” she said, in a choked voice.  “And loved you for it.”  Next instant she leaned forward, took his temples between her hands, and lightly touched his brow with her lips.  “Go, go!” she exclaimed, with an accent of despair.

She herself turned and went quickly out of the room.

CHAPTER XXV

Bryant had asked Carrigan to come to the office at two o’clock, stating that the company was insolvent and but enough money remained to square accounts with the contractor.  Pat had cast a shrewd glance at Lee and nodded.  This was during the morning.  Afterward the engineer had gone for a visit to the dam, the drops, and the canal line, a last view of the project as a whole; and the ride was pursued in that peculiar melancholy of spirit which appertains to mortuary events.  To him, indeed, the ride marked a burial, a burial of high hopes and ambition, and of his youth, with the partially excavated canal providing their pit and the concrete work standing as a headstone.