She turned on the light by her dressing-table, and sat down to take off her few simple ornaments and the ribbon-bow in her hair. The face that met her gaze in the mirror looked so strange that it frightened her. Yes, like Crane himself, she had been surprised at her own self-control. But she knew as well as she knew she was alive that Crane, in some way, had betrayed Senator Bicknell, the man who, after honestly admitting that Crane could serve him, was yet animated by a sincere wish to benefit Crane; who had given Crane his first political start in life, and had treated him with unvarying kindness ever since. The more she thought over what had happened that evening, the more acute became her fear and her pain. She stopped in her employment, and, leaning upon her arms, sat motionless for a long time. Suddenly, the distant chiming of a clock told her it was midnight. She roused herself, and then, following an influence stronger than herself, went into the next room, where Crane had been going through his agony alone. As she approached him, he raised a pale and conscience-stricken face to hers, but it was quite calm. He had fought the battle out, and there was no longer a conflict within him. “Yes,” he said, as if continuing out aloud a consecutive train of thought, “I should be very grateful to you--I _am_ grateful to you. No doubt, Senator Bicknell was influenced very much in what he did by the admiration and respect he has for you. But it only makes it the harder for me.” “There should be no question of gratitude between you and me,” replied Annette, coming closer to him. “There is much--much. I have not realised until within the last few months how much I really owe you--but why do I say months? I might say the last few hours--the last few minutes--and I have also realised how much more I might have owed you, for I am beginning to think that few women are as well adapted as you are for the wife of a man like me. Not all women would have borne with poverty and seclusion as you have done.” A deep blush suffused Annette’s face. The poverty and seclusion had been in a way forced upon her by him, but, being a woman of invincible discretion, she did not put her resentment into sarcastic words, or words at all. She stood by him silently, and, seeing that Crane was striving to speak, awaited his words gently, laying her free hand on his shoulder. At last it came--a full confession--made in broken words and phrases, but of which Annette understood every word.