“As a favour. I knew the difficulties of your position.... I understood completely. I beg of you never again to allude to--all that.” It dawned on her that anything would be more endurable to him than to think he had been a dupe--and one of two dupes! The part was not one that he could conceive of having played. His pride was up in arms to defend her, not so much for her sake as for his own. The discovery gave her a baffling sense of helplessness; against that impenetrable self-sufficiency all her affirmations might spend themselves in vain. “No man who has had the privilege of being loved by you could ever for a moment....” She raised her head and looked at him. “You have never had that privilege,” she interrupted. His jaw fell. She saw his eyes pass from uneasy supplication to a cold anger. He gave a little inarticulate grunt before his voice came back to him. “You spare no pains in degrading yourself in my eyes.” “I am not degrading myself. I am telling you the truth. I needed money. I knew no way of earning it. You were willing to give it ... for what you call the privilege....” “Lizzie,” he interrupted solemnly, “don’t go on! I believe I enter into all your feelings--I believe I always have. In so sensitive, so hypersensitive a nature, there are moments when every other feeling is swept away by scruples.... For those scruples I only honour you the more. But I won’t hear another word now. If I allowed you to go on in your present state of ... nervous exaltation ... you might be the first to deplore.... I wish to forget everything you have said.... I wish to look forward, not back....” He squared his shoulders, took a deep breath, and fixed her with a glance of recovered confidence. “How little you know me if you believe that I could fail you _now_!” She returned his look with a weary steadiness. “You are kind--you mean to be generous, I’m sure. But don’t you see that I _can’t_ marry you?” “I only see that, in the natural rush of your remorse--” “Remorse? Remorse?” She broke in with a laugh. “Do you imagine I feel any remorse? I’d do it all over again tomorrow--for the same object! I got what I wanted--I gave him that last year, that last good year. It was the relief from anxiety that kept him alive, that kept him happy. Oh, he _was_ happy--I know that!” She turned to Prest with a strange smile. “I do thank you for that--I’m not ungrateful.” “You ... you ... _ungrateful_? This ... is really ... indecent....” He took up his hat again, and stood in the middle of the room as if waiting to be waked from a bad dream. “You are--rejecting an opportunity--” he began. She made a faint motion of assent. “You do realize it? I’m still prepared to--to help you, if you should....” She made no answer, and he continued: “How do you expect to live--since you have chosen to drag in such considerations?” “I don’t care how I live. I never wanted the money for myself.”