Suddenly she put her hand to her bosom, and drew out that same piece of paper which I had seen her hide there. Before my eyes she read, or seemed to read, something that was in it; then she shut her hand on it. In a moment I was by her, very close. I looked full in her eyes, and they fled behind covering lids; the little hand, tightly clenched, hung by her side. What had I to lose? Was I not already banned for forwardness? I would be forward still, and justify the sentence by an after-crime. I took the hanging hand in both of mine. She started, and I loosed it; but no rebuke came, and she did not fly. The far-off stir of coming victory moved in my blood; not yet to win, but now to know that win you will sends through a man an exultation, more sweet because it is still timid. I watched her face--it was very pale--and again took her hand. The lids of her eyes rose now an instant, and disclosed entreaty. I was ruthless; our hearts are strange, and cruelty or the desire of mastery mingled with love in my tightened grasp. One by one I bent her fingers back; the crushed paper lay in a palm that was streaked to red and white. With one hand still I held hers, with the other I spread out the paper. "You mustn't read it," she murmured. "Oh, you mustn't read it." I paid no heed, but held it up. A low exclamation of wonder broke from me. The scrawl that I had seen at Canterbury now met me again, plain and unmistakable in its laborious awkwardness. "In pay for your dagger," it had said before. Were five words the bounds of Nell's accomplishment? She had written no more now. Yet before she had seemed to say much in that narrow limit; and much she said now. There was long silence between us; my eyes were intent on her veiled eyes. "You needed this to tell you?" I said at last. "You loved her, Simon." I would not allow the plea. Shall not a thing that has become out of all reason to a man's own self thereby blazon its absurdity to the whole world? "So long ago!" I cried scornfully. "Nay, not so long ago," she murmured, with a note of resentment in her voice. Even then we might have fallen out; we were in an ace of it, for I most brutally put this question: "You waited here for me to pass?" I would have given my ears not to have said it; what availed that? A thing said is a thing done, and stands for ever amid the irrevocable. For an instant her eyes flashed in anger; then she flushed suddenly, her lips trembled, her eyes grew dim, yet through the dimness mirth peeped out. "I dared not hope you'd pass," she whispered. "I am the greatest villain in the world!" I cried. "Barbara, you had no thought that I should pass!" Again came silence. Then I spoke, and softly: "And you--is it long since you----?"