“That ... that was before the plague came to my rescue. In what you did then, you sought at the risk of your life to make me the only possible amend, and to deliver me from the evil man into whose power you had brought me. But the plague, now. It was no fault of yours that I took that. It was already upon me when you brought me hither.” “No matter for that,” said he. “Reparation was due. I owed it to myself.” “You did not owe it to yourself to risk your life for me.” “My life, madam, is no great matter. A life misused, misspent, has no great value. It was the least that I could offer.” “Perhaps,” she answered gently. “But also it was the most, and, as I have said, far more than you owed.” “I do not think so. But the matter is not worth contending.” He did not help her. Persuaded of the scorn that must underline her utterances, however smooth--because conscious that scorn was his only desert--he accepted her words as expressions of a pitying gratitude that offended. He stood before her, overwhelmed by the consciousness of his unworthiness, in a mood of the most abject humility. But unconsciously, without suspecting it, he had empanoplied this humility in pride. His desire, above all, was to withdraw from an interview that could be nothing but a source of pain. But she detained him, persisting in what he accounted her cruel charity. “At least the reparation you have made is a very full one.” “It would comfort me to hear you say it, could I believe you,” he answered grimly, and would have taken his leave of her on that but that she stayed him by her interjection. “Why should you not believe me? Why should I be other than sincere in my desire to thank you?” He looked at her at last, and in his eyes she saw some reflection of the pain he was suffering. “Oh, I believe you sincere in that. You wish to thank me. It is natural, I suppose. You thank me; but you despise me. Your gratitude cannot temper your contempt. It is not possible.” “Are you so sure?” she asked him gently, and her eyes were very piteous. “Sure? What else can I be? What else is possible? Do I not loathe and despise myself? Am I so unconscious of my own infamy that I should befool myself into the thought that any part of it can escape you?” “Don’t!” she said. “Ah, don’t!” But in the sorrow in her face he read no more than the confirmation of the very thing she was feebly attempting to deny.