The next instant, however, she laughed.

He might have broken his word to himself; he would not break it to her.
Drake went home, reckoning up the harm he had done with a feeling of degradation quite new to him.

Not the least part of that harm was the compromise finally agreed upon.

But for the traces of tears upon the girl's cheeks, he would hardly have agreed to it even in the face of her appeal.

Once alone, however, he saw clearly all--the deception that it implied--deception which involved the girl, too, as well as himself.