"Look here, Ragna, you are not a fool, you knew I could not marry you--" Her scornful eyes stopped him; he shrugged his shoulders. "My dear girl, if you had not wished--I have never taken a woman against her will--" "You coward!" she said her eyes blazing. He rose and strolling to the window carefully chose a cigarette from his case and as carefully lit it, but in spite of himself his hands trembled. Ragna sat immovable on the sofa as though turned to stone. The rain pattered softly on the window-sill and the warm heavy dampness invaded the room. Below, in the kitchen, someone was clattering pots and pans, and Maria's voice took up the refrain of the "Ciociara." The lively tune rose, a ghastly mockery, and Ragna smiled at the irony of it, then a fresh wave of despair swept over her, her shaken nerves gave way, and dropping her head on her folded hands she wept disconsolately and brokenly. The forlornness of her attitude, the bowed head with its dishevelled mass of golden hair, the slender shoulders heaving with noiseless sobs touched Mirko; he threw his cigarette out of the window with an angry gesture and paced up and down the long narrow room, tugging at his moustache and knitting his brows. The mood of brutality like that of a sated animal had passed and a reaction of something very like shame, set in--shame be it said, not for having taken advantage of a confiding girl, but for the unchivalrous cynicism of his subsequent conduct which he could see no way of glossing over. A woman may forgive passion, brutality even, but not the poisoned barb of cynicism. His vanity refused to consider the situation irretrievable notwithstanding, and he paused beside the weeping girl. "Ragna," he said, "forgive me! I have behaved like a brute and I deserve to be kicked." The accent of sincere regret in his voice was like balm to the girl's wounds; by his self-abasement she might recover a semblance, at least, of self-respect that would help her to tide over the present necessity. In a half subconscious way she realized that death does not come through the wishing for it, that a situation no matter how terrible must be lived through somehow,--but oh, to be alone! "Poor child," said Mirko, stroking the silky waves of her hair, "I must have been mad! Will you not believe that I was mad, dear,--and forget all that I would have you forget?" He knelt beside her putting one arm about her; with his free hand he forced her head up from her locked fingers and would have kissed the tears away, but she drew back with horror. "Oh, no! Never again!" "Ragna," he pleaded, "but you love me?" "I did love you--once," she said in a toneless voice. "I did love you--too much." "No, dearest, not too much--" he started but stopped silenced by the expression of her eyes. "God knows," he said impulsively, "that I would give my life not to have hurt you! You were too beautiful,--you maddened me!"