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Ever since they had gone to school together, hand in hand, the

names of Nellie Tanner and Code Schofield had been linked in the

mouths of Grande Mignon busybodies. Living all their lives two

doors away, they had grown up in that careless intimacy of

constant association that is unconscious of its own power until

such intimacy is removed.

To-night the shock had come.

It was not that Code had taken for granted that Nellie would

marry him. Never in his life had he told her that he loved her.

It is not the habit of men who rove the seas to keep those they

love constantly supplied with literature or confectionery, or to

waste too many words in the language of devotion.