“Harry!” There was a strange cadence in her voice—­not of self-defence—­not of recrimination—­only of overwhelming pity:  “Don’t you think that I too have had my troubles?  Do you think it was nothing to me to love you as I did and have—­” She stopped, drew in her breath as if to bolster up some inward resolution, and then with a brave lift of the head added:  “No, I won’t go into that—­not to-day.”

“Yes—­tell me all of it—­you can’t hurt me more than you have done.  But you may be right—­no, we won’t talk of that part of it.  And now, Kate, I won’t ask you to stay any longer; I am glad I saw you—­it was better than writing.”  He leaned forward:  “Let me look into your face once more, won’t you?—­so I can remember the better. ...  Yes—­the same dear eyes—­ and the hair growing low on the temples, and the beautiful mouth and—­No—­I sha’n’t forget—­I never have.”  He rose from his seat and held out his hand:  “You’ll take it, won’t you?—­just once—­Good-by!”

She had not moved, nor had she grasped his hand; her face was still towards him, her whole frame tense, the tears crowding to the lids.

“Sit down, Harry.  I can’t let you go like this.  Tell me something more of where you are going.  Why must you go to sea?  Can’t you support yourself here?—­isn’t there something you can get to do?  I will see my father and find out if—­”

“No, you won’t.”  There was a note almost of defiance in his voice—­one she had never heard before.  “I am through with accepting favors from any living man.  Hereafter I stand in my own shoes, independent of everybody.  My father is the only person who has a right to give me help, and as he refuses absolutely to do anything more than pay my board, I must fall back on myself.  I didn’t see these things in this same way when Uncle George paid my debts, or even when he took me into his home as his guest, but I do now.”

Something gave a little bound in Kate’s heart.  This manly independence was one of the things she had in the old days hoped was in him.  What had come over her former lover, she wondered.

“And another thing, Kate”—­she was listening eagerly—­she could not believe it was Harry who was speaking—­“if you were to tell me this moment that you loved me again and would marry me, and I still be as I am to-day—­outlawed by my father and dependent on charity—­I would not do it.  I can’t live on your money, and I have none of my own.  Furthermore, I owe dear Uncle George his money in such a way that I can never pay it back except I earn it, and that I can’t do here.  To borrow it of somebody else to pay him would be more disgraceful still.”

Again her heart gave a bound.  Her father had followed the opposite course, and she knew for a certainty just what some men thought of him, and she could as easily recall half a dozen younger men who had that very summer been willing to play the same game with herself.  Something warm and sympathetic struggled up through her reserve.