"I beg your pardon for making a scene, Gwynneth; it isn't in my line, as you know, and I apologise. But do you mind telling me when you discovered that you had--changed?" "I have not changed, Sidney. That is my shame." "Do you mean that you never did care about me?" "Never in that way. I am ashamed to say it--more humiliated and ashamed than you can ever know. But it's the truth." "Yet at the First Trinity ball, I remember, if you don't----" His tone was more than Gwynneth could endure. "Yes, I remember," she cried; "and I can explain it, though explanations are no excuse. Sidney, you know what my life was until the last few months? Happy enough in heaps of ways, but not the least gaiety in it; and suddenly I felt the want of it. I felt it first abroad, and you met that want in your May-week in a way beyond my dreams. You may sneer at me now, but you were awfully nice to me then, and I shall never, never forget it. You were so nice that I honestly did think for a little that you met every other want as well! Yet I tell you now, what I tried to tell you once before, that when once you had spoken nothing was the same. It was like touching a bubble. The bubble had burst." "You felt like that from the first?" Gwynneth turned away, for now they were both upon their feet, restlessly hovering between the summer-house and the sunlight. "And yet it has taken you two months to tell me," pursued Sidney without remorse. "I know; it was dreadful of me; yet I could not tell you till I was absolutely certain, and it is not so easy to be certain of oneself in such things. If you find no difficulty, Sidney, then you might pity those who do. Nevertheless, I did write, on my birthday, when you sent me those beautiful pearls. Sidney, you must take them back--for my sake. I meant to send them back at once, but you know what I heard that very morning! It may have been cowardly and weak, but how could I tell you I did not love you the moment I knew I was to have a little money of my own? It's hard enough as it is; but I had not the pluck for that. Yet it is hard enough now," repeated Gwynneth, with great feeling; "and you haven't made it easier, Sidney. No, I don't mean anything you may have said; you have not said more than I deserve. But you tempted me--you little know how you have tempted me--to be dishonest with you to the end. It would have been so easy to make poor Mr. Carlton the whole cause, and not to have told you the truth at all!" "Then I wish to God you had done so!" Sidney cried out, revealing the character of his wound unawares, yet once more human, young, and vain. Moreover there was passion enough in his eyes and voice, as there had been in his wooing. "Besides," he continued, "poor Mr. Carlton, as you call him, _is_ the cause, I don't care what you say. Curse him! Curse him, body and soul!"