Their diseased lust for gain without toil.” Then he tried to think of the life he was leading, with one figure eliminated; and the blankness of the prospect appalled him.

With a sudden impetuous motion he caught up her hand, where it lay idly in her lap, and held it close. She tried to draw it away, but could not.

“Everything seems so different, Frank, since I’ve known you!” he said, a little huskily.

“It’s different with me, too!” she all but whispered, looking away. Her face, in the waning light, against the gloom of the dark-curtained taxi-cab, looked pale, and, as he had so often felt, almost flower-like.

“Frank!” he cried in a voice that started her breathing quickly. “Won’t you—won’t you marry me?”

She looked at him out of what seemed frightened eyes, with an unnatural and half-startled light on her pale face.

“I love you, Frank, more than I could ever tell you!” he went on, impetuously. “You could walk over me, you could break me, and do what you like with me, and I’d be happy!”

“Oh, you don’t know me, you don’t know me!” she cried. “You don’t know what I’ve been!” And some agony of mind seemed to wrench her whole body.

“I don’t care what you’ve been—I know what you are! You’re the woman I’d give my life for—I’d lay it down, without a thought, for you! And, good Lord, look at me! Don’t you think I’m bad enough myself—and a hundred times more weak and vacillating than you! I love you, Frank; isn’t that enough?”

“No!” she mourned, “it&rsquo