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 slowly as he stood before her.

"Your idea, then, is that I should tell her nothing?" he said.

"Tell her now? But, my poor friend, you would be ruined!"

"Exactly." He paused. "Then why have you told me?"

Under her dark skin he saw the faint colour stealing. "We see things so differently—but can't you conceive that, after all that has passed, I felt it a kind of loyalty not to leave you in ignorance?"

"And you feel no such loyalty to her?"

"Ah, I leave her to you," she murmured, looking down again.

Durham continued to stand before her, grappling slowly with his perplexity, which loomed larger and darker as it closed in on him.

"You don't leave her to me; you take