"Not that he's not good to me," she hastened to add, impelled by pride and pity. "A bit difficult at times, because he knows that he cannot make me his wife. But I don't really mind. For I'm so sorry for him." The rest of the drive had proceeded in stark silence, punctuated at intervals by those scattered inanities by which one strives to cover the nakedness of the soul. As he sat beside her to-night, Anne surmised the torture that Vittorio had undergone. Her knowledge of his character was founded upon years of comradeship. A proud man, it must have been sheer agony for him to realize her anomalous position. To feel that she had been content to take second best when he had offered her his all so many times and been rejected. And yet although it was inevitable that he should suffer, not once had he made her feel any lessening of his respect, or even of his love. He had understood so much better than most men the impulse of pity that lay back of her surrender. He had seemed to comprehend, too, the temporal quality of it all. Anne knew that if she would leave Alexis and go to Vittorio some day he would not only consider her as unsmirched as before, but possibly better for the experience. He was unique among men in that he realized the sacrificial quality of her action. The only thing that he would not forgive would be hypocrisy. Of that she was aware, to her despair. For it was this very thing that had severed them like a sword when they parted. Vittorio believed that out of some motive of pity, and possibly of modesty, Anne was deceiving him about her feeling for Alexis. She knew he believed this and yet she was as powerless to undeceive him as she was to take up the imaginary sword that lay between them and thrust it into her living breast. Oh, why had she not obeyed her instinct for flight, and avoided this perilous encounter? What a tragedy of errors they had all drifted into. What a farce it was. A trick of the ironical gods who dig colossal fingers into one's ribs and expect one to laugh like a babe being tickled. Why had Vittorio returned to-night of all nights? To-night when she had been riding upon the pinnacle? Why had their eyes encountered in that shattering glance, which had flung her once more into the abyss of doubt and fear? She had felt so exultant in Alexis' triumph. So eager to pour renewed radiance upon his victory and his fatigue. And now the desire had completely departed, sucked into the mud of anti-climax.