Winnie's brows were raised again. In view of what had occurred that day, of the sudden revelation of Godfrey, of the abrupt change his act had wrought in her relations to him, the question seemed to imply an unreal simplicity of the emotions, a falsely uncomplicated contrast between two states of feeling, standing distantly over against one another. Such a conception in no way corresponded with her present feelings about Godfrey Ledstone. The man she loved had done the thing she could not forgive--did she love him? Yet if she did not love him, why could she not forgive him? Unless she loved him, it was small matter that he should be ashamed and run away. But if he were ashamed and ran away, how could she love? Love and contempt, tenderness and repulsion, seemed woven into one fabric of intricate, almost untraceable pattern. How could she describe that to Amy Ledstone? "I suppose I love my Godfrey, but he seems not to be the same as yours. I can't put it better than that. And you love yours, and not mine. I think that's all we can say about it." Amy had her complications of feeling too. She dried her eyes, mournfully saying, "That's not true about me. I like yours best--if I know what you mean. He was a man, anyhow. But then I know it's wicked to feel like that." Winnie looked up at her. "Of course you must think it wicked--I quite see that--but you do understand more than I thought," she said. "And you won't think I'm abusing him? It wouldn't seem wicked to me at all--if I'd happened on the right man. But I didn't. That's all. And this way of ending it seems somehow to--to defile it all. The end spoils it all. That seems to me shamefully unfair. He had a right to go, but he had no right to be ashamed. And he is ashamed, and almost makes me ashamed. I could almost hate him for it." "We've made him ashamed. You must hate us." "I like you. And--no--how could I hate your father and mother? They made me no promise; I've given nothing to them on the strength of a promise. But to him I've given everything I had; not much, I know, but still--everything." Amy twisted her gloved hands round one another. She was calmer now, but her face was drawn with pain. "Yes, that's true," she said. Then she came out abruptly with what had been behind her spoken words for the last ten minutes, with what she had to say before she could bring herself to leave Winnie. "At any rate, you've pluck. Godfrey's a coward." Winnie's lips bent in a queer smile. "Don't! Where does it leave me? Oh yes, it's true about him, I suppose. That's my blunder." Amy walked back to the mantelpiece; she had left her muff on it. She took it up and moved towards the door. "I'll go. You must have had enough of the lot of us!"