Nervous Käthchen distinctly was; for she knew the terrible responsibility that lay on her; and all the fine calmness she had been calculating on in her communings with herself in lonely railway-carriages seemed now to have fled. But perhaps it was just as well; for in a somewhat incoherent, but earnest, fashion, she plunged right into the middle of things, and told him the whole story—told him of the factor’s circumstantial and malignant slander, of Mary’s momentary bewilderment, of the luckless meeting, and of her subsequent bitter remorse and despair. At one portion of this narrative his face grew dark, and the black eyes burned with a sullen fire. "I have a long account to settle with Purdie," said he, as if to himself, "and it is about time the reckoning was come." But when she had quite finished with her eager explanations, and excuses, and indirect appeals, what was his reply? Why, not one word. She looked at him—in blank dismay. "But, Mr. Ross!—Mr. Ross!——" she said, piteously. There was no response: he had received her communication—that was all. "I have told you everything: surely you understand: what—what message am I to take?" Käthchen exclaimed, in trembling appeal. "I have heard what you had to say," he answered her, with a studied reserve that seemed to Käthchen’s anxious soul nothing less than brutal, "and of course I am sorry if there has been any misunderstanding, or any suffering, anywhere. But these things are past. And as for the present, I do not gather that you have been commissioned by Miss Stanley to bring one solitary word to me—one expression of any kind whatsoever. Why should I return any reply?—she has not spoken one word." "Oh, you ask too much!" Käthchen exclaimed, in hot indignation. "You ask too much! Do you think Mary Stanley would send for you? She is as proud as yourself—every bit as proud! And she is a woman. You are a man: it is your place to have the courage of yielding—to have the courage of offering forgiveness, even before it is asked. If I were a man, and if I loved a woman that I thought loved me, I would not stand too much on my dignity, even if she did not speak. And what do you want—that she should say she is sorry? Mr. Ross, she is ill! I tell you, she is ill. Come and judge for yourself what all this has done to her!—you will see only too clearly whether she has been sorry or not. And that superstition of hers, about there being a fatality attending her family—that they cannot help inflicting injury and insult on you and yours—who can remove that but yourself? No," she said, a little stiffly, "I have no message from Mary Stanley to you; and if I had, I would not deliver it. And now it is for you to say or do what you think best."