bring himself to the point of yielding. His silence filled her with apprehension. She looked at him with frightened eyes.
"Philip," she pleaded, "if you have ever loved me, you will let me go free."
Still he did not answer her.
"Philip! I demand it. It is my right as a woman."
"Very well. I submit. I will not hold you against your will. You are free."
She went up to him then and took both his hands in hers.
"Thank you, dear!" she said. "You are so good. You were always good to me. You have never been kinder to me than you have been to-night. You have never been dearer to me than you are at this moment."
Holding his hands thus she lifted her face to his and kissed him.
Buffeting the wind and snow as he journeyed homeward that night, Westgate thought little of the December blasts. His mind was filled with the tragic climax of his one great love. He knew that she looked upon her act as irrevocable, as the definite parting of ways that would never again be joined, and that he had no right to consider it otherwise. But, out of the clouds and darkness that surrounded him, one momentous fact thrust itself in upon his memory: in the midst of her cruelty to him she had kissed him. She had not declared that she would be his friend; she had not hoped that he would be happy; she had not promised to pray for him; she had not said any of the inane things that most girls feel it incumbent on them to say on such occasions, and for that he was duly grateful; but—she had kissed him.
The breaking of the engagement between Westgate and Ruth Tracy was more than a nine days' wonder. As the fact became known, and no attempt was made to conceal it, the parish was stirred anew. Every one
