"You don't," said the girl, "for you know that if you did, I would do it." She began to walk on again. "It wouldn't be hard for me to forgive you anything you've done against me--or against yourself; I should care for you the same--if you were the same person; but you're not the same, and you know it. I told you then--that time that I didn't want to make you do what you knew was right, and I never shall try to do it again. I'm sorry I did it then. I was wrong. And I should be afraid of you if I did now. Some time you would make me suffer for it, just as you've made me suffer for making you do then what was right." It struck Jeff as a very curious fact that Cynthia must always have known him better than he knew himself in some ways, for he now perceived the truth and accuracy of her words. He gave her mind credit for the penetration due her heart; he did not understand that it is through their love women divine the souls of men. What other witnesses of his character had slowly and carefully reasoned out from their experience of him she had known from the beginning, because he was dear to her. He was silent, and then, with rare gravity, he said, "Cynthia, I believe you're right," and he never knew how her heart leaped toward him at his words. "I'm a pretty bad chap, I guess. But I want you to give me another chance and I'll try not to make you pay for it, either," he added, with a flicker of his saucy humor. "I'll give you a chance, then," she said, and she shrank from the hand he put out toward her. "Go back and tell that girl you're free now, and if she wants you she can have you." "Is that what you call a chance?" demanded Jeff, between anger and injury. For an instant he imagined her deriding him and revenging herself. "It's the only one I can give you. She's never tried to make you do what was right, and you'll never be tempted to hurt her." "You're pretty rough on me, Cynthy," Jeff protested, almost plaintively. He asked, more in character: "Ain't you afraid of making me do right, now?" "I'm not making you. I don't promise you anything, even if she won't have you." "Oh!" "Did you suppose I didn't mean that you were free? That I would put a lie in your mouth for you to be true with?" "I guess you're too deep for me," said Jeff, after a sulky silence. "Then it's all off between us? What do you say?" "What do you say?" "I say it's just as it was before, if you care for me." "I care for you, but it can never be the same as it was before. What you've done, you've done. I wish I could help it, but I can't. I can't make myself over into what I was twenty-four hours ago. I seem another person, in another world; it's as if I died, and came to life somewhere else. I'm sorry enough, if that could help, but it can't. Go and tell that girl the truth: that you came up here to me, and I sent you back to her."