“Look at me! look at me!” the splendid woman proudly cried. “Dare any man say that my life has been a lie? Hear my story. “Starvation, cold charity or the ignominy of helpless dependence was all you left me. I put our babe away. I went out a toiler into the world. As a school teacher I drifted away to the far West, and only changed my name. I left our home to avoid the honest love of good men who would have married me for pity’s sake. For men were good to the shamed widowed Margaret Cranstoun. “My clean hands were still linked by law to the unpunished fugitive felon. _I am free now_, and I know that you never would dare to speak. I know your coward soul. A judicial decree that you are dead can be easily had; your eighteen years of absence makes that my legal right. Widow of the heart, I will be a widow by law. But your coward silence will continue. “Where did I gain wealth? I see the question in your eyes. I became a school teacher at Leadville. A few acres of ground and a cottage were the first fruits of my savings. “The kindly mountain gnomes worked for me, with fairy friendship. “There was a million in carbonates under those rocky slopes where I tempted the hardy flower to grow. “Young yet—_beautiful then_—I became the ardent chase of men in marriage. My gold gilded my lonely life. Many wished to share it. “I was made sadly wise, and I reaped my harvest of sorrows. Five years in Europe made me a woman of the world—an accomplished world wanderer. I have learned in these lonely years the delicious power of wealth. “I followed your secret example. I legally changed my name to Elaine Willoughby. And my honest title is clearer than yours. “I have an able lawyer to defend my rights, in whom you would find an implacable foe.” She paused and spoke the final doom of his hopes. “Had you come to me, red-handed, but loving, I might have forgiven you, followed you—loved you even in your crime—and suffered all to shield the one beloved head. _I did love you once with my whole soul._” There was the sound of choking sobs, and in an instant, Garston was on his knees before her. The silence was broken by her faltering accents. “But now, freed by Nature’s reincarnation, loyal even yet to a dead past, I exult in the unchallenged ownership of my mind, body and soul. You would take to your bosom the woman you still find fair, rich, powerful and respected. _Never! Nature revolts!_ “For the starving outcast of the streets who sells herself for bread to the first chance comer were white as snow compared to the woman who would again sink to your level. “Arnold Cranstoun, any man in the world but you may look on me with longing eyes. “_Between us there is the gulf of your eternal shame!_ Now, _leave me_. I fear you not! Let all else go on as fate ordains. “Your silence will be assured, for fear will seal your lips. Let there be neither approach nor avoidance—simply the oblivion of the absolute divorce of all laws, God’s, Nature’s, and man’s.