"I did give her money, but not as you mean. I was sorry for her and wanted to help her. I wouldn't have hurt her any more than you would. It was because of you I went there. It was because we heard you were so interested in her. But after I got there I was ashamed and sorry, and I tried not to make her feel it." "So you gave her two dollars for four plants! It takes a woman to know how to humiliate a woman!" "I saw she wasn't the kind of person Maud thought she was," continued Letitia, going blindly on. "I was certain they made a mistake in saying the things they did about her. Even if you were giving them money, even if you were supporting them, she wasn't that kind." "Who told you I was supporting them?" "Oh, I don't know--people say it. And maybe I did do her an injustice in going there and spying on her, as you say. But you are the one who has done her a real injustice--the kind of injustice that hurts." "I!" he exclaimed, too surprised to defend himself. "What have I done?" "You've kept it all so secret that you made people think there was something wrong about it." "Letitia," he cried, in a tone of warning, "take care! You've meddled enough already." "You hid away your friendship with her as if it were shameful. You acted as if you were ashamed of her and of your knowing her--as if there was something wicked about her, so you couldn't even speak of her to me or any other woman that you knew well. When I asked you about her, though you were too much of a man of honor to tell me a lie, you were not too much of a man of honor to act one. You gave her father money, but you were ashamed to acknowledge that you even knew her." "We've had enough of this conversation," he said, now trembling with rage. "Let it end." He turned to leave the room, but Letitia's voice arrested him, and he stood with his back to her, listening. "You ought to have known enough to trust her," she continued desperately, for she was singing the swan-song of her hopes. "You've only got to look into her face to see what she is. No matter what people say about her and her father, no matter what silly stories are repeated, even if there _were_ other men who gave the colonel money--" Letitia stopped. Gault had wheeled suddenly round upon her, and the expression of his face made the words die on her lips. "Other men!" he repeated. "Who said that?" "Tod," she faltered. "Who were they?" "I--I--don't know; he didn't tell their names." "What did he say?" "He said--he said--" she stammered, bewildered by her own pain and sympathy for his obvious suffering. "No, it was I. I asked him if the colonel got money from other men, and he--he didn't say much; he laughed and said, 'Well, I should snicker!'" "Thank you," answered Gault, in a low voice. "Good night." He turned and left the room, and a moment later the hall door closed behind him with a muffled bang.