She raised her head from my shoulder and looked me in the face with her fearless eyes. “I never loved him. I have been a sort of daughter to him. I scarcely knew what marriage meant until--until it was all over. Then for a time I hated him; I felt myself degraded. Dorrie came. I fought against her coming. Then I grew reconciled. I tried to be true to him because he was her father. He made me respect him, because he was so patient. Dante, when I think of him, I become ashamed of what we are doing.” Her nostrils quivered, betraying her suppressed emotion. She had spoken with effort. “Why did you leave him? Did you intend to go back to him?” She became painfully confused. “Why do you put so many questions?” she cried. “Don’t you trust me?” “Vi, I trust you so much that for you I’m going to alter all my life. I’m so glad that you too are willing to be daring.” “Then why do you question me?” “Because I want to be more sure that he has no moral right to you.” “I left him,” she said, “because I could no longer refuse him. He was breaking down my resistance with his terrible kindness. If he had only been unjust and had given me some excuse for anger, I could have endured it. But day after day went by with its comfort, and its heartache, and its outward smoothness. And day after day he was looking older and more patient, and making me feel sorrier for him. He got to calling me ‘My child.’ People said how beautiful we were together. I couldn’t bear to stay and watch him humbling himself and breaking his heart about me. So I asked him to let me go traveling with Dorrie. He let me go, thinking that absence and a change of scene might teach me how to love him.” She hid her face against me. It was burning. “He thinks you are coming back again?” “He thinks so in every letter he writes. I thought so too when I went away.” “Vi, you never wear a wedding ring. Why is that if you meant to return to him?” “I wanted to be young just for a little while. They made me a woman when I was only a child.” “And that was why you taught Dorrie to call you Vi?” The pity of it got me by the throat. I kissed her eyes as she leant against me. “Poor girl, then let us forget it.” She struggled feebly, making a half-hearted effort to tear herself away. “But we can’t forget it,” she whispered. “We can’t, however we try. There’s Dorrie. He loves her terribly. He would give me anything, except Dorrie.” “And we both love Dorrie,” I said; “we could never do anything that would spoil her life--that would make her ashamed of us one day. You’re trembling like a leaf, Vi. You mustn’t look afraid of me.” Gradually she nestled closer in my embrace. It was not me that she had feared, but consequences. We became sparing in our words; words stated things too boldly.