There was a few minutes' silence whilst I tried to be honest with Frank and with myself. Then I said slowly: "I don't believe I really did forgive her altogether till I heard of her death, though I loved her all the time more than I loved life itself. But after she died I gradually realised that there was nothing to forgive. I had been weighed in her balance, and had been found wanting, and she had no further use for me: therefore she threw me on one side as worthless. I was hers to do what she liked with, and she had a perfect right to retain or to reject me as she thought fit. But, mind you, I didn't see this at first. I am no better than my neighbours, and for a long time I was as harsh and bitter and vindictive as any poor beggar of the so-called 'criminal classes' could have been in the circumstances. It is only since Fay's death that I have realised that she was justified in the course she took." "But she wasn't----" Frank began; but I stopped him. "No, no! Say what you like about yourself, my boy, but not a word against Fay. And don't think that because I completely exonerate her I also exonerate you. For I don't. Whatever lay between her and me, was sacred to her and me, and no one had any right to intermeddle in it. Neither had you nor anybody else a right to try to put asunder those whom God had joined together: and that--unless I do you a grave injustice--is what you did." Frank pondered on my words for a short time and then he said: "To a certain extent, perhaps, I did come between you and Fay, and, as I have told you, I repent of what I did in dust and ashes. But I never meant to come between you. On that score my conscience is clear. What I did do was to persuade her to come away with me: but I never did that until something or somebody had already come between you and her, and I saw she was fretting her life out because of it." I was startled. "Something had already come between us! What in Heaven's name do you mean?" "It is rather difficult to explain, Reggie," replied Frank, carefully weighing his words in his endeavour to be lucid: "yet I think I must try to do so even if I make a hash of it, because at present you are absolutely in the dark about the whole affair. As far as I can make out, you think that Fay went away because she didn't love you enough." "That certainly was my impression," I said, trying in vain to keep the pain out of my voice. "Well, then, you are off on a wrong scent altogether. Fay went away because she loved you too much." "Loved me too much! I don't understand." I was dazed by Frank's incomprehensible burst of confidence.