Anne was not callous or unfeeling in her readiness to disregard what he might be expected to call the ethics of the case. She very sensibly looked at the question as one in which the conscience had no part, for the simple reason that there was no guilty motive to harass it. If his conscience was clear,—and it most certainly was,—there could be no sound reason for him to deny himself the right to reclaim that which belonged to him by all the laws of nature. On her part there was not the slightest feeling of revulsion. She did not look upon his act as a barrier. Her own act in betraying him was far more of a barrier than this simple thing that he had done. She had believed it to be insurmountable. She had long ago accepted as final the belief that he despised her and would go on doing so to the end. And now, in the last hour, there had been a revelation. He still loved her. His scorn, his contempt, his disgust were not equal to the task of subduing the emotion that lived in spite of all of them. But this other thing! This thing that he would call _decency_! All through the afternoon his savage, discordant cry: "Don't do that!" rang in her ears. She thrilled and crumpled in turn. The blood ran hot once more in her veins. As she looked back over the past year it seemed to her that her blood had been cold and sluggish. But now it was warm again and tingling. Even the desolating thought that her discovery would yield no profit failed to check the riotous, grateful warmth that raced through her body from crown to toe. Despair had its innings, but there was always compensation in the return of a joy that would not acknowledge itself beaten. Joy enough to feel that he could not help loving her! Joy to feel that he was hungry too! No matter what happened now she would know that she had not lost all of him. After a while she found herself actually enjoying the prospect of certain failure on Braden's part in the case of Marraville. Reviled and excoriated beyond endurance, he would take refuge in the haven that she alone could open to him. He would come to her and she would go with him, freely and gladly, into new places where he could start all over again and—But even as she conjured up this sacrificial picture, this false plaisance, her cheeks grew hot with shame. The real good that was in Anne Tresslyn leaped into revolt. She hated herself for the thought; she could have cursed herself. What manner of love was this that could think of self alone? What of him? What of the man she loved?