He squared his shoulders and faced her, his voice ringing clear, his eyes flashing:  something of the old Dutch admiral was in his face.

“Kate—­I will have none of it!  Don’t talk such nonsense to me; I won’t listen.  If you don’t know your own heart I know mine; you’ve got to love me!—­you must love me!  Look at me.  In all the years I have been away from you I have lived the life you would have me live—­every request you ever made of me I have carried out.  I did this knowing you would never be my wife and you would be Willits’s!  I did it because you were my Madonna and my religion and I loved the soul of you and lived for you as men live to please the God they have never seen.  There were days and nights when I never expected to see you or any one else whom I loved again—­but you never failed—­your light never went out in my heart.  Don’t you see now why you’ve got to love me?  What was it you loved in me once that I haven’t got now?  How am I different?  What do I lack?  Look into my eyes—­close—­deep down—­read my heart!  Never, as God is my judge, have I done a thing since I last kissed your forehead, that you would have been ashamed of.  Do you think, now that you are free, that I am going back without you?  I am not that kind of a man.”

She half started from her seat:  “Harry!” she cried in a helpless tone—­“you do not know what you are saying—­you must not—­”

He leaned over and took both her hands firmly in his own.

“Look at me!  Tell me the truth—­as you would to your God!  Do you love me?”

She made an effort to withdraw her hands, then she sank back.

“I—­I—­don’t know—­” she murmured.

“You do—­search again—­way down in your heart.  Go over every day we have lived—­when we were children and played together—­all that horror at Moorlands when I shot Willits—­the night of Mrs. Cheston’s ball when I was drunk—­all the hours I have held you in my arms, my lips to yours—­ All of it—­every hour of it—­balance one against the other.  Think of your loneliness—­not mine—­yours—­and then tell me you do not know!  You do know!  Oh, my God, Kate!—­you must love me!  What else would you want a man to do for you that I have not done?”

He stretched out his arms, but she sprang to her feet and put out her palms as a barrier.

“No.  Let me tell you something.  We must have no more misunderstandings—­you must be sure—­I must be sure.  I have no right to take your heart in my hands again.  It is I who have broken my faith with you, not you with me.  I was truly your wife when I promised you here on the sofa that last time.  I knew then that you would, perhaps, lose your head again, and yet I loved you so much that I could not give you up.  Then came the night of your father’s ball and all the misery, and I was a coward and shut myself up instead of keeping my arms around you and holding you up to the best that was in you, just as Uncle George