"Don't you see that we cannot possibly discuss it? It is a question of one's honor--isn't it? It is impossible that such a thing could be argued about." "But--surely you have something to say--some explanation to make! Tell me. You will not find me--a hard judge." "I'm sorry," he said brusquely, "but I can make no explanation." She was conscious that he stood beside her on the hearth-rug. Though her face was lowered and turned from him, the eye of her mind held perfectly the presentment of his face, and she knew that more than age had gone over it since she had seen it last. Had any other man in the world but West been in the balance, she felt that, despite his own words, she could no longer believe him guilty. And even as it was--how could that conceivably be the face of a man who-- "Won't you shake hands?" Turning, she gave him briefly the tips of fingers cold as ice. As their hands touched, a sudden tragic sense overwhelmed him that here was a farewell indeed. The light contact set him shaking; and for a moment his iron self-control, which covered torments she never guessed at, almost forsook him. "Good-by. And may that God of yours who loves all that is beautiful and sweet be good to you--now and always." She made no reply; he wheeled, abruptly, and left her. But on the threshold he was checked by the sound of her voice. The interview, from the beginning, had profoundly affected her; these last words, so utterly unlike his usual manner of speech, had shaken her through and through. For some moments she had been miserably aware that, if he would but tell her everything and throw himself on her mercy, she would instantly forgive him. And now, when she saw that she could not make him do that, she felt that tiny door, which she had thought double-locked forever, creaking open, and heard herself saying in a small, desperate voice:-- "_You did write it, didn't you_?" But he paused only long enough to look at her and say, quite convincingly:-- "You need hardly ask that--now--need you?" * * * * * He went home, to his own bedroom, lit his small student-lamp, and sat down at his table to begin a new article. The debt of money which was his patrimony required of him that he should make every minute tell now.