She winced as if I had struck her. “Oh!” she murmured. If she had been the ordinary woman, who in every crisis with man instinctively resorts to weakness’ strongest weakness, tears, I might have a very different story to tell. But she fought back the tears in which her eyes were swimming and gathered herself together. “That is brutal,” she said, with not a touch of haughtiness, but not humbly, either. “But I deserve it.” “There was a time,” I went on, swept in a swift current of cold rage--“there was a time when I would have taken you on almost any terms. A man never makes a complete fool of himself about a woman but once in his life, they say. I have done my time--and it is over.” She sighed wearily. “Langdon came to see me soon after I left your house and went to my uncle,” she said. “I will tell you what happened.” “I do not wish to hear,” replied I. “I have been waiting impatiently ever since you left for news of your plans.” She grew white, and my heart smote me. She came into the room and seated herself. “Won’t you stop, please, for a moment longer?” she said. “I hope that, at least, we can part without bitterness. I understand now that everything is over between us. A woman’s vanity makes her belief that a man cares for her die hard. I am convinced now--I assure you I am. I shall trouble you no more about the past. But I have the right to ask you to hear me when I say that Langdon came, and that I myself sent him away; sent him back to his wife.” “Touching self-sacrifice,” said I, ironically. “No,” she replied. “I cannot claim any credit. I sent him away only because you and Alva had taught me how to judge him better. I do not despise him as do you; I know too well what has made him what he is. But I had to send him away.” My comment was an incredulous look and shrug. “I must be going,” I said. “You do not believe me?” she asked. “In my place, would you believe?” replied I. “You say I have taught you. Well, you have taught me, too--for instance, that your years and years on your knees in the musty temple of conventionality before false gods have made you--fit only for the Langdon sort of thing. You have forgotten how to stand erect, and your eyes cannot bear the light.” “I am sorry,” she said, slowly, hesitatingly, “that your faith in me has died just when I might, perhaps, have justified it. Ours has been a pitiful series of misunderstandings.” “A trap! A trap!” I was warning myself. “You’ve been a fool long enough, Blacklock.” And aloud I said: “Well, Anita, the series is ended now. There’s no longer any occasion for our lying or posing to each other. Any arrangements your uncle’s lawyers suggest will be made.” I was bowing, to leave without shaking hands with her. But she would not have it so. “Let us be friends, at least,” she said, stretching out her long, slender arm and offering me her hand.