"It is cooler without," she answered. Even though her explanations need not fear the light, she thought obscurity might ease their telling. With no other greeting, the dentist passed to the window opposite hers, slouched wearily into a chair, and waited in silence for her to begin. Jean told her story in its fullness: her tomboy girlhood, the hateful family jars, the last quarrel with Amelia, her sentence to the refuge, her escape, return, riot-madness, and release, and the inner significance of her late struggle for a living against too heavy odds. She told it so honestly, so plainly, that she thought no sane being could misunderstand; yet, vaguely at first, with fatal clearness as, ending, she strained her eyes toward the dour shadowy figure opposite, she perceived that she had to deal with doubt. "Do you think I am holding something back?" she faltered, after a long silence. "Must I swear that I've told you the whole truth?" The man stirred in his place at last. "I guess an affidavit won't be necessary," he returned grimly. She endured another silence impatiently, then rose proudly to her feet. "I'll say it for you," she flashed. "This frees you of any promises to me, Paul. You are as free as if you had never made them. Go your own way: I'll go mine. It--it can't be harder than the one I've come. Good-by." He roused himself as she made to leave. "Hold on, Jean," he said, coming closer. "I guess we can compromise this thing somehow." "Compromise! I have nothing to compromise." "Haven't you?" He laughed harshly. "I should say--but let that pass. Of course, after what's turned up, you can't expect a fellow to be so keen to marry--" "I've told you that you are free," she interrupted. "But I don't want to be free--altogether. We could be pretty snug here, Jean. The parson's rigmarole doesn't cut much ice with me, and I don't see that it need with you. They think downstairs we're married. That part's dead easy. As for Grimes and the rest--" She had no impulse to strike him as she had the floor-walker. Waiting in his folly for an answer, the man heard only her stumbling flight along the corridor and the jar of a closing door. XVIII Yet, an hour later, Paul came seeking her at Mrs. St. Aubyn's, and, failing, returned in the morning before she breakfasted. Unsuccessful a second time, and then a third, he wrote twice, imploring her not to judge him by a moment's madness.