“You are a byword among men! No nice girl will be seen with you! You will never again be asked to any respectable house! Annette says so! She will be even compelled to shut her door against you!” “Sappha, Sappha! Do you know what you are saying?” “Only too well I know it. Annette has just been here. She has told me all. You left her to tell me. Why did you not come yourself? Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, all these days I have been in suspense and misery.” “Listen to me, Sappha, I----” “It is too late now. Annette has told me. I have heard it all--my heart is broken--I shall die of shame. Every one will pity me. I cannot, I cannot bear it----” “Stop one moment, Sappha. Do you believe Annette? Do you think she will be forced to shut her door against me?” “She says so.” “Then Judge Bloommaert may have the same obligation--and you also. If you can believe this, you can believe anything that is said against me, your promised husband. It is I who am heartbroken. It is I who must feel shame. It is I who must go all my life in the fiery shadow of wrong and injustice. Sappha, you have known me as no other person has known me,--in my inmost soul,--and yet you can believe I deserve such treatment?” “How can I tell? If you had done anything to right yourself----” “Oh, that is not the question. You should have trusted me through everything, and in spite of every one. You have failed me just when I needed most your love and confidence. If Annette tells you I ought to be shut out of your heart and house, you will believe her! What is your love worth? It is only a summer day’s idyll. The first chill wind of disapproval kills it. I will go before I am shut out. In future days it may be easier for you to remember that I closed the door on my own happiness. Oh, Sappha, Sappha! lighter than vapour is your love--and I had built my life upon it!” His face expressed more indignation than distress. He lifted the rose she had flung down and looked at it with a moment’s pity; then he pushed it toward her. “It is my last offering,” he said. “Take it. And as it fades, forget me. I shall never give you shame or trouble again.” Then anger took entire possession of Sappha; and anger does everything wrong. She lifted the rose and cried out amid her passionate weeping: “I will not wait for it to fade. No, I will forget you _now! now! now!_” and as she uttered the words she ruthlessly tore off the white petals, scattered them on the floor at his feet--and was gone.