"You know why I came to-night," he began nervously.
Miss Hitchcock put down the book she held in her hands and turned her face to him.
"Will you help me—to live?" he said bluntly.
She rose from her seat, and, with a slight smile of irony, replied,
"Can I?"
"The past,—" Sommers stammered. "You know it all better than any one else."
"I would not have it different, not one thing changed," she protested with warmth. "What I cannot understand in it, I will believe was best for you and for me."
"And the lack of success, the failure?" Sommers questioned eagerly; a touch of fear in his voice. "I am asking much and giving very little."
"You understand so badly!" The smile this time was sad. "I shall never know that it is failure."