"I don't know. I generally am, whatever I do," she cried, with some more tears. "But no matter. I suppose you _do_ feel things, though you have such a cold-blooded way of looking. Well, I didn't know till a few months ago about--about your wife. And I can only say, I had liked you so much in spite of believing you were not kind and generous to her--and--and--if I had known you had been nobler and better than any other man in the world has ever been--" Mr. Andrews got up and walked a few times up and down the path before the steps, which was the only indication that he gave of not being cold-blooded when that deep wound was touched. "I trusted to your being just to me when you knew the truth," he said, at last. "I wonder you didn't hate me," she exclaimed. "Well, I didn't," he said. "You have so little egotism," she went on. "I suppose it's that makes you able to bear injustice. You were so patient and overlooked so much, and I was--so horrid." "I had been so deceived before," he said, "perhaps I was more pleased with your honesty than offended by it. I was conscious of not deserving your contempt, and I felt so certain of your truth. I was a little pleased, too, with your liking me in spite of yourself. You see I knew you liked me, 'horrid' as you were to me." "Then why did you go away, if you knew I liked you?" cried Missy, looking up at him with fire. "Because, at last, I got tired of being snubbed," he said. "I believe I had got to the end of that patience you are pleased to give me credit for. I thought I'd go away awhile and let you see how you liked it." "And you went away and meant to come back?" exclaimed Missy, beginning to cry again, "and left me to this dreadful year of misery. I never will forgive you--I might have died. I only wonder that I didn't." "I didn't suppose you cared enough to die about it, but I thought you'd see you did care when you thought it was too late. I don't know much about women, but I know that sort of thing occurs. And I didn't mean to come back as soon as this, either. It was only seeing the place advertised frightened me a little and made me think you might be going through some trouble. Do you know, I didn't believe, up to the very last day, that you would let me go? I have never been angry with you, but I own I was very sore and disappointed when I found you had gone out that afternoon, when I sent word by Jay, that I was coming in to say good-bye. And yet it looked so like pique, I half thought you would send me some sort of message in the evening." Missy hung her head as she remembered that half hour in the darkness at the gate, but she did not tell him, either then or after, how nearly right he was about it. "Jay did not tell me. Of course you might have known that. And--those horrid women--said you were going to take them for a drive at half past three o'clock."