“And Leonard himself ate with thee on the Sunday previous to the duel, and what he told Achille thou heard. If it seemed true and good to Achille, could thou not also have believed? I am ashamed of thee! Thou hast not one decent excuse. All thou said to Sappha, thou said, knowing in thy cruel heart it was lies.” “Grandmother, it is too bad to put all the blame on me. And I will not now be scolded as if I was a child.” “Then why did thou come here, deceitful one? Did thou think I would bless thee for thy shameless cruelty? Go to thy own home, then.” “Dear grandmother--you will make me ill. I cannot bear you to be angry.” “Well, then, go tell thy cousin thou art sorry.” “Yes, I will, if I can see her. I will do it for your sake, grandmother. I will do anything, if you will forgive me. I was so miserable that morning--if you would tell Sappha I am sorry, then perhaps she will listen to me.” “I will see to that. I want not to have the whole city talking of the quarrel in the Bloommaert family. Our troubles are our own, and our own are our quarrels. To-morrow I will talk to Sappha; and the next day thou must make all right that is wrong. See thou do it.” With this understanding Annette went home, and on the day appointed she visited Sappha. In the interval madame had also visited Sappha, and with the help of her son and daughter-in-law arranged a kind of truce between Annette and the cousin she had injured so seriously. But now, if never before, all three learned the strength of that unbendable will which madame had pointed out as existing in Sappha’s nature, when as yet no one had ever seen any evidence of it. Sappha agreed, for the sake of preventing gossip about the Bloommaerts, to speak politely to Annette whenever they met; and also not pointedly to avoid their meeting by disappearing whenever Annette appeared. Beyond this concession she would not move; and when madame proposed a family dinner at Annette’s house, Sappha said with a positiveness even her father respected: “I will not enter Annette’s house.” “That is a word that cannot stand, Sappha,” answered madame, with an almost equal positiveness. “It will stand, grandmother,” Sappha replied, “until I enter it with Leonard Murray. Annette threatened to shut her door against Leonard. In so doing, she shut it against me. If Leonard should ever return, if he should ever forgive me--he may then forgive the woman who has caused us both so much suffering. If these unlikely things happen, we may go _together_ to Annette’s. I will never go without him. Never!” And there was such calm invincible determination in every word she uttered that even madame felt it useless to try either reasoning or authority. Indeed, Sappha won in this plain statement of her position the perfect sympathy of her father, and he said: