"My being--vulnerable--made Leonard more, even more, than usually aggressive. That's all. They brought him back to me dying. He lived only about half an hour. We were curiously happy in that half hour--but it was terrible afterwards." She fell into silence, her eyes very sorrowful. Then she turned to me, with a gesture of her hands. "That's all the story--and it's for you alone--because you're Austin." I took her hand for a moment and pressed it. "For me alone--I thank you." "A thing like that seems to sweep across life like a hurricane, doesn't it? Leveling everything, destroying such a lot!" "You've come back to build it all up again." She smiled for a moment. "So you've found that out? But I can't build it all up. Some things I shall never try to build again. The track of the hurricane will always be left." "Time, time, time!" said I. "Not even time. Life's not over--but it's life with a difference. I don't complain. I accept that readily. I almost welcome it. I may cheat the world, but I won't cheat myself. I'm not at my old trick of having it both ways for myself, Austin." She was determined to see clearly herself, but admitted no obligation to allow outsiders a view. She would not minimize the thing for herself, but was quite ready to induce the rest of the world to ignore it. It was her affair. To her the difference was made, over her life the hurricane had swept. "I have no kith or kin; nobody is bound to me. The love of my friends is free--free to withhold, free to give. I did it for myself, open-eyed. There is nobody who has a right to harbor it against me." And she meant that there never should be? It sounded like that. "As a private offense against him, or her, I mean--as a personal offense. Of course they've a right to their opinions--and with their opinions I expect I should agree."