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320 not tremble. If he could have seen her on some parties this last year. . ..

“You have changed a lot.” Her words were barely audible. “You have changed an awful lot.”

He smiled. “I hope so. There are times now when I hate myself, but I never hate myself so much as when I think of Prom. I’ve learned a lot in the last year, and I hope I’ve learned enough to treat a decent girl decently. I have never apol¬ ogized to you the way I think I ought to.”

“Don’t!” she cried, her voice vibrant with pain. “Don’t! I was more to blame than you were. Let’s not talk about that.”

“All right. I’m more than willing to forget it.” He paused and then continued very seriously, “I can’t ask you to marry me now, Cynthia—but— but are you willing to wait for me? It may take time, but I promise I ’ll work hard.”

Cynthia’s hands clenched convulsively. “No, Hugh honey,” she whispered; “I’ll never marry you. I—I don’t love you.”

“What?” he demanded, his senses swimming in hopeless confusion. “What?”

She did not say that she knew that he did not love her; she did not tell him how much his quixotic chivalry moved her. Nor did she tell him that she knew only too well that she could lead him to hell, as he said, but that that was the only place that she could lead him. These things she felt positive