“Pardon me, but you don’t know. What does a woman know about such things? How do you know what it is for a man as strong as I am, as mature as I am, and with such a history as I have, to love? Yes, by God, to love for the first time. What does a woman’s pale reflection of passion know of the love of a man like me? I know all about life and death too. I have been a half–dozen times within six inches of a bullet that was extremely likely to be shot into my brain. I have felt the whir of a knife, that sometimes got planted in me, but never quite far enough to kill me. I have signed my name fifty times to things that meant either millions of dollars to me or state’s prison. These are only a few of the things that I know all about, but I tell you, Elizabeth Darrell, that they all seem like milk and water compared with what I feel for you. Do you know that the first time I saw you, when you were a mere slip of a girl, that night I crushed your little pearl heart under my foot, I felt a strange, even a superstitious interest in you? I never forgot you; and the first moment I saw you that Sunday afternoon, last November, something came over me which made everything in the world seem small, beside the thought of winning you. I have gone through a good deal since, but nothing has really mattered to me except you.” Clavering stopped. His voice, always earnest, had remained calm and even low. Elizabeth was trembling from head to foot. Her resolution never to marry Clavering was not shaken in the least, or even touched, but like a child who has heedlessly set the torch to a powder magazine, she was appalled at her own work. She remained silent—what was there for her to say? And then she saw a figure pass the bowed shutters, making a shadow flit across the floor; and it was the shadow of Hugh Pelham. She sprang to her feet, a new light in her eyes which Clavering had never seen before. Clavering was for an instant as completely forgotten as if he had never been. He saw his fate in that look, that action. He rose, too, and the next moment Hugh Pelham walked into the room. He was visibly older, more weather–beaten, than he had been two years before, and, although ten years Clavering’s junior, he looked quite the same age. Evil–doing is very often good for the physical man and well–doing bad for the physical man. The two men instinctively recognized each other at the first glance, and hated each other instantly with a mortal hatred. Elizabeth stood next Pelham. She had given him her hand without a word, and he held it firmly. Clavering turned to Elizabeth and said: “When can I see you again? Pray make it as soon as possible. That much I can ask, after what has passed between us.” “Excuse me,” said Pelham, politely, “but I don’t think Mrs. Darrell can see you again.”