“Is it worth while to close our eyes to a truth so self-evident?” he cried. “For years I sought you, Nan, a man without a stain upon his name, to find you at last in an hour in which I was so besmirched that I could not bear your eyes upon me. The very act that by a cruel irony of chance brought us together here at last was an act by which I touched the very bottom of the pit of infamy. Then--that dreadful night--you regarded me rightly with loathing. Now you regard me with pity because I am loathsome. Out of that pity, out of your charity, you fling me thanks that are not due, since what I have done was done in mitigation of my offence. What more is there to say? If this house were not locked, and I a prisoner here, I should have gone by now. I should have departed in that blessed moment that Beamish announced your danger at an end, taking care that our paths should never cross again, that I might never again offend you with the sight of my loathsomeness or the necessity to render thanks for benefits received from unclean hands, that you properly despise.” “You think that sums all up?” she asked him, sadly incredulous. “It does not. It leaves still something to be said--indeed, a deal.” “Spare it me,” he begged her passionately. “Out of that same charity that bids you thank me, spare me.” Then, more briskly, with a certain finality, he added: “If you have commands for me, madam, I shall be below until this house is reopened, and we can go our separate ways again.” He bowed formally, and turned away. “Randal!” she called to him as he reached the door. He paused, his firm resolve beaten down by that pleading utterance of his name. “Randal, won’t you tell me how ... how you came into ... into the position in which I found you here? Won’t you tell me that? Won’t you let me know all--all--so that I may judge for myself?” A moment he stood there, white to the lips and trembling, fighting his pride--that pride which was masquerading in the garment of humility, and so deceived him that he suffered it to prevail. “Judge me, madam, upon the evidence you possess. It is sufficient to enable you to do me justice. Nothing that went before, no vicissitudes of my vagrant life, can extenuate the thing you know of me. I am a scoundrel, a loathsomeness, an offence, and you know me to be this--you in whose eyes I would ever have appeared as a man of shining honour. Oh, God pity me! Don’t you see? Don’t you see?” Her eyes were suddenly aswim in tears. “I see that perhaps you judge yourself too hardly. Let me judge for myself, Randal. Don’t you see that I am aching to forgive? Is my forgiveness nothing to you?”