And she understood. She wrenched her hands away, she stretched out her arms, she thrust him away from her, in her violence she struck him. "No, it's not true," she cried, "it's not true!" and so fell to pleading volubly. "Say that it's not true, now, at once. Say there's no truth in your words. Say that pity prompted them and only pity," and her voice rose again in a great horror. Horror glittered too in her eyes. "Say that you spoke more than you meant to speak!" "I can say that," he answered. "When I came into this room I had no thought of speaking--as I did. But I saw you--I watched your hands," and he caught his breath, "and they plucked the truth out from me. For what I said is true." "No!" she cried. "Very true," he repeated quietly. Her protesting arms fell limply to her sides. She nodded her head, submitted to his words, acknowledged their justice. "Yes," she said, "yes. I knew this afternoon. You told me in the garden, and though I would not know, still I could not but know." Then she rose from her chair and walked to the window. Charnock did not speak. He hung upon her answer, and yet dreaded to hear it, so that when her lips moved, he would have had them still, and when they ceased to move, he was conscious of a great relief. After a long while she spoke, very slowly and without turning to face him, words which he did not understand. "Love," she said, in a wondering murmur, "is it so easily got? And by such poor means? Surely, then it's a slight thing itself, of no account, surely not durable," and at once her calmness forsook her; she was caught up in a whirl of passion. She raised a quivering face, and cried aloud in despair: "It's the friend I wanted; I want no lover!" "But you have both," returned Charnock. With a hand upon the table he leaned over it towards her. "You have both." "Ah!" exclaimed Miranda. With extraordinary swiftness she swung round and copied his movement. She leaned her hand upon the table, and bent forward to him. "But to win the one I have had to create the other. To possess the friend I have had to make the lover," and she suddenly threw herself back and stood erect. "Well, then," and she spoke with a thrill in her voice, as though she had this instant become aware of a new and a true conviction, "I must use neither--I will use neither--I want neither." She faced Charnock resolute, and in her own fancy inflexible to any appeal. Only he made no appeal; he drew his hand across his forehead and looked at her with an expression of simple worry and bewilderment. "My ways have lain amongst men, and men, and men," he said regretfully. "I wish I understood more about women." The simplicity of his manner and words touched her as no protestations would have done, and broke down her self-control.