have let me live on, steeped in my folly? It's too late for me to
change. I can't. I'm pledged. If I gamble, keep late hours, and do
all the things that this set does it's because if I didn't I should die
of thinking. What does it matter to any one but me?"

She stopped and rose with a sudden gesture of anger.

"Don't preach, John. I'm not in the humor for it--not to-night--do you
hear?"

He looked up at her in surprise. One of her hands was clenched on the
balustrade and her dark eyes regarded him scornfully.

"I've made you angry? I'm sorry," he said.

The tense lines of her figure suddenly relaxed as she leaned against
the pergola and then laughed up at the sky.

"Would you preach to the stars, John Markham? They're a merry
congregation. They're laughing at you--as I am. A sermon by moonlight
with only the stars and a scoffer to listen!"

Her mockery astonished and bewildered him. His indictment of those
with whom she affiliated was no new thing in their conversations, and
he knew that what he had said was true.

"I'm sorry I spoke," he muttered.

She laughed at him again and threw out her arms toward the moonlit sea.