She opened her eyes to find out why there was a sudden calm. She saw him staring with set, white face through the rain-veil. His arms still held her, but where they had been like the clasp of life itself, they were now dead as the arms of a statue. A feeling of cold chilled her skin, trickled icily in and in. She released herself--he did not oppose her. "It seems to me I'll never be able to look you--or myself--in the face again," he said at last. "I didn't know it was in me to--to take advantage of a woman's helplessness." "I wanted you to do what you did," she said simply. He shook his head. "You are generous," he answered. "But I deserve nothing but your contempt." "I wanted you to do it," she repeated. She was under the spell of her love and of his touch. She was clutching to save what she could, was desperately hoping it might not be so little as she feared. "I had the--the same impulse that you had." She looked at him timidly, with a pleading smile. "And please don't say you're sorry you did it, even if you feel so. You'll think me very bold--I know it isn't proper for young women to make such admissions. But--don't reproach yourself--please!" If she could have looked into his mind as he stood there, crushed and degraded in his own eyes, she would have been a little consoled--for, in defiance of his self-scorn and self-hate, his nerves were tingling with the memory of that delirium, and his brain was throbbing with the surge of impulses long dormant, now imperious. But she was not even looking toward him--for, through her sense of shame, of wounded pride, her love was clamoring to her to cry out: "Take me in your arms again! I care not on what terms, only take me and hold me and kiss me." The rain presently ceased as abruptly as it had begun and they returned under the dripping leaves to the highroad. She glanced anxiously at him as they walked toward the town, but he did not speak. She saw that if the silence was to be broken, she must break it. "What can I say to convince you?" she asked, as if not he but she were the offender. He did not answer. "Won't you look at me, please?" He looked, the color mounting in his cheeks, his eyes unsteady. "Now, tell me you'll not make me suffer because you fancy you've wronged me. Isn't it ungallant of you to act this way after I've humiliated myself to confess I didn't mind?" "Thank you," he said humbly, and looked away. "You won't have it that I was in the least responsible?" She was teasing him now--he was plainly unaware of the meaning of her yielding. "He's so modest," she thought, and went on: "You won't permit me to flatter myself I was a temptation too strong even for your iron heart, Don Quixote?" He flushed scarlet, and the suspicion, the realization of the truth set her eyes to flashing.