"Do you wonder now I was strong enough to hesitate? I was only too glad when Dora said she was going to carry me off to Perros-Guirec. It would take me away from you and--temptation. Then you sent me those flowers. I was touched. Not by the flowers, but by the train of thought they set going. The ghost of my conscience came up, suggesting I should be treating you badly, seeing 'you had 'em so bad.' And then you had, say, ten thousand pounds a year! That, I suppose, had something to do with the rising of the phantom. So I determined to take you to Dora's--of course, she replied at once she would be pleased to welcome you--and I made up my mind, half to amuse myself, that I would make you propose in the cab on the way to her. I could read you through and through, and knew your every thought. So far I had kept you at a perceptible distance, now it pleased me to draw you close to me, and to see you obey without my uttering a single word of command. I told you about my old engagement just then because it gave me a sensation of daring. I calculated on stirring the romance and chivalry in you still more deeply. The experiment was risky--but it succeeded. You responded like a good ship to its helm. Then for the first time since I had known you, Paul, I suffered remorse--real remorse. Why it came just then I have never been able to make out, but all of a sudden I was dreadfully sorry for you. "I saw clearly that even if I _had_ loved you, our lives could never harmonise; that after the first honeymoon cooings, the conflict of wills and ideas would inevitably set in, and we should both be utterly and hopelessly miserable. But I did _not_ love you, and I felt myself in a terrible dilemma. You were on the point of speaking, and the only thing I could think of to stop you, and to stop you for always, was to tell you my early flirtations. I was hoping to play on your prejudices and set you against me. I was true to myself then; I was throwing away--how many thousands a year? "But I caused you suffering to no purpose, and, as I realised nothing would make you desist, the temptation of all those thousands came upon me again. I argued I was the stronger personality of the two, and I should be able to manage you--easily. Curious how I accentuated the 'easily,' and twisted my arguments to suit it. There was little to do--I just pulled the wire and the puppet worked. You'll forgive me for calling you a puppet, Paul, but you were one, you know. "Perhaps now you will begin to understand how I felt the next morning. I really liked you, Paul, and I had done you so great a wrong from the very moment of our first meeting. I had not cried for more than three years, Paul, but I cried then. The situation was desperate, and there was nothing for it but to apply a desperate remedy.