Majendie rose. "I may tell Mr. Gorst that you accept his explanation? That you understand?" "Am I never to see him again?" "I'm afraid not." "Nor write to him?" "It's better not. It only worries him." She looked round her, dazed by the destruction of her dream. "What am I to do, then? Where am I to go to?" "Stay where you are, if you're comfortable. Your rent will be paid for you, and you shall have a small allowance." "But who's going to give it me?" "Mr. Gorst would, if he could. As he cannot, I am." "You mustn't," said she. "I can't take it from you." He had approached this point with a horrible dread lest she should misunderstand him. "Better to take it from me than from him, or anybody else," he said significantly; "if it must be." But Maggie had not misunderstood. "I can work," she said. "I can pay a little _now_." "No, no. Never mind about that. Keep it--keep all you earn." "I can't keep it. I'll pay you back again. I'll work my fingers to the bone." "Oh, not for me" he said, laughing, as he took up his hat to go. Maggie lifted her sad head, and faced him with all her candour. "Yes," she said, "for you." CHAPTER XXII Majendie owned to a pang of shame as he turned from Maggie's door. In justice to Gorst it could not be said that he had betrayed the passionate, perverted creature. And yet there was a sense in which Maggie's betrayal cried to Heaven, like the destruction of an innocent. Majendie's finer instinct had surrendered to the charm of her appealing and astounding purity, by which he meant her cleanness from the mercenary taint. He had seen himself contending, grossly, with a fierce little vulgar schemer, who (he had been convinced) would hang on to poor Gorst's honour by fingers of a murderous tenacity. His own experience helped him to the vision. And Maggie had come to him, helpless as an injured child, and feverish from her hurt. He had asked her what she had wanted with Gorst, and it seemed that what Maggie wanted was "to help him." He said to himself that he wouldn't be in Gorst's place for a good deal, to have that on his conscience.