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 He paused for a moment. "That's my guess. Now may I offer a suggestion, for what it's worth?"

"Go on."

"You have one terrible weakness. In mending another's life you are infallible. You are less sure when it comes to taking care of your own. The thought that you might be prompted by selfish motives would be enough to make you refrain from interference. But have you the right to stand by and see two lives drifting on a course that might entail your own destruction? If you had been able to put yourself irrevocably into my keeping, that would have been one thing. But you weren't quite. At the same time you came far enough in my direction to jeopardize your old security. If you were to become lost, now, on no man's land, I should never forgive myself for letting myself be persuaded by you . . . I've put an extreme case because I know you're not afraid of facing any conceivable contingencies."

"There's more in it than that," she finally replied, and her voice announced a maturity born of suffering. "Because it's a relationship for which I am responsible. If I were to get lost on no man's land, which isn't at all likely, it would be a direct result of my objection to trenches, and no one but myself could be made to pay the penalty of my recklessness. I brought Miriam here for my own reasons, and kept her here. Keble and I were traveling independently; for I couldn't resist dashing off his pathway whenever the mood seized me. The more liberties