'As you wished to be; it was to serve my own ends--my own purpose that I simulated--then--so hate me if you can!' 'Hate you,' he faltered, utterly crushed and bewildered by her words. His eyes were lurid now, for anger again mingled with love in them. 'Surely this is all some bad dream, from which I must awaken.' 'It is no dream,' said Annot, turning with an unsteady step as if she would pass him; but he barred her way. 'Do you mean that you loved some one else?' he asked. 'Do not ask me.' 'I have the right to do so!' 'No, Roland--you have not.' 'You surely did at one time love me, Annot, or your duplicity is monstrous, till--till this fellow Hoyle came upon the tapis? Was it not so?' he asked, almost piteously, for his moods varied quickly. 'Not quite; and I can't be poor, that is the plain English of it; I can't be a struggling man's wife, as I now know yours must be, as Earlshaugh----' 'Belongs to another, and not to me, you mean?' She was silent. Selfish though she was to the heart's core, a blush crossed her cheek, a genuine blush of shame at her own blunt openness, and it was but too evident that she had schooled herself for all this--had screwed her courage to the sticking point. 'Then I have only been a cat's-paw, and you have loved, if it is in your nature to love, another all the time?' said Roland hoarsely, as he drew back a pace with something of horror and disgust in his face now. Almost pitifully did this cruel girl regard his face, which had become ashy gray, the wounded and despairing love he felt for her passing away from his eyes, while his figure, she could not but admit, was straight, handsome, and proud in bearing as ever, when compared with that of the _other_, who was in her mind now. 'All is over, then, and there is no need to torture or humiliate me further,' said he. 'All is over--yes,' she replied, with a real or affected sob; 'and you will, I hope, bless the day when I left you free to win a richer bride than I am, Roland. Forgive me, and let us part friends.' '_Friends!_' he exclaimed, in a low voice of reproach, bitterness, and rage curiously mingled. Resolute to act out the scene to the last detail, she slowly drew her engagement ring off her finger--like the marriage ring, the woman's badge of servitude according to the old English idea, but of eternity with every other people, past or present--laid it on a table near him, and gliding away without another word or glance, they separated, and Roland stood for a minute or so as if turned to stone. Then, like one in a dream, he found himself walking slowly to and fro, forgetful even of his temporary lameness, on the terraced path beneath the towering walls of the old house.