"But I did not plan to injure her reputation in any way, nor indeed anyone's reputation. Divorces are common enough I am sure. The idea of running away with Daisy for a few weeks came upon me, as I said, suddenly. I was going West, very far West, and she was returning home, when I met her on the train. It was impossible for me not to see how easily we could enjoy a delightful season together, at some pleasant resort where neither of us was known—merely as good friends you understand. The marriage ceremony was to be a temporary convenience to quiet her nervousness, to be explained afterwards as a good joke. On my honor I meant nothing else." He came to a sudden pause, for Mary Dunlap had risen, her face white with righteous indignation. "I must interrupt you," she said. "I fail to see why you should disgrace yourself and me by exposing such details, or attempting to gloss over your sin. If you think to win sympathy thereby, you must have a strange idea of women! You to defile that sacred word 'love' in such connection! Why even a wild beast knows that love means protection, means sacrifice of self for the sake of the object loved! But you loved this child only enough to practice upon her the most cruel deception a man can offer to a woman, to blight her future, and bring despair to her family, for the sake of gratifying for a few weeks, your passion for her society! "It is folly to suppose that you did not know what you were doing! You are neither a fool, nor a lunatic. Why do you want to grovel before me by exposing that whole vile plot? It seems amazing that you can have so soon forgotten what you said to me that night at the hotel; and how awfully your words and your position contradict those statements! Before I saw you in this house this morning, as the husband of another woman, I supposed you were a half-way decent villain, who had tried to run away with and marry the girl he fancied he loved." He too had risen. He trembled visibly and he was white to his lips, but he tried to speak with dignity. "I have made a mistake," he said. "I see I cannot make you understand. But I am ready to grovel still, and beg your mercy. I have not ruined her; she is free from me forever; and I am asking you to have pity on my wife and children. And since no harm can come to anyone by your silence, to spare my family. I am ready to give you my word of honor that I will never see the girl again, never attempt to communicate with her in any way." Mrs. Dunlap's immediate response to this, brought a scarlet flush over his face and set the blood humming in his ears: "Your word of honor!" But he was in real terror now; he had neither cowed nor deceived this woman. No sentimental twaddle about uncongenial marriages and soul-love, had done other than deepen her disgust.