"Let him go!" Julia cried fiercely. "I am only thankful that you punished him. We do not want his apologies. I hope that I may never see him again!" Graveling, who had reached the door, leaning heavily upon Aaron, turned around. His face, with the streak of blood upon his cheek, was ghastly. He left the room between Aaron and the servant. They heard his unsteady footsteps in the hall, a whistle, the departure of the cab. "Aaron has gone with him," Maraton remarked quietly. "Perhaps it is as well." Her face suddenly relaxed and softened. The fury left her eyes; she sank back into the easy chair. "I am ashamed," she moaned. "Oh, I am ashamed!" CHAPTER XXV The sound of traffic outside had died away. The silence became almost unnaturally prolonged. Only the echo of Julia's last words seemed, somehow or other, to remain, words which inspired Maraton with a curious and indefinable emotion, a pity which he could not altogether analyse. Twice he had turned softly as though to leave the room, and twice he had returned. He stood now upon the hearthrug, looking down at her, perplexed, himself in some degree agitated. She was not weeping, although every now and then her bosom rose and fell as though with some suppressed storm. It was simply a paroxysm of sensitiveness. She was afraid to look up, afraid to break a silence which to her was full of consolation. Maraton, a little ashamed of the scene in which he had been an unwilling participator, bitterly self-accusing, still found his thoughts diverted from his own humiliation as he watched the girl--a long, slim figure bent in one strangely graceful curve, her beautiful hair gleaming in the soft light, her face still half hidden by her strong, capable fingers--a figure exquisitely symbolic, full of pathos. Her elbows rested upon her knees; she was crouched a little forward. "Julia!" he ventured at last. She looked up, without undue haste but without hesitation. She had obviously been waiting for speech from him. He saw then that his impression had been a true one. There were no traces of tears in her eyes, which sought his at once--sought his with a look which warned him suddenly of his danger. Her cheeks were burning; she was still shaking with some internal passion. "After all," he said soothingly, "there are such people in the world. One can't ignore the fact of their existence. They don't really count." Her eyes flashed. "It is terrible that they should be allowed to live." He smiled at her sympathetically. Speech seemed somehow to lessen the tension between them. "My dear Julia," he declared, "I am suffering just as much as you. I have the feeling that I have descended to the level of a common brawler. Yet what was I to do? he needed the lesson very badly indeed." "I only hope that it will last him all his life. I only hope that he will not come near either of us again."