"Don't," he said harshly, "don't." But he could not bring himself to draw his hand away otherwise than very gently, and after a decent pause. He stood up and held out his hand. She put hers in it, he raised her to her feet and put her back in her chair, and artfully entrenching himself behind a little table, sat down in a very stiff chair with a high seat and gilt legs. She laughed. "Oh, don't trouble! You needn't barricade yourself like a besieged castle. Don't be afraid of me. You're really quite safe. I'm not so mad as you think. Only, you know, all this time I've never been able to get the idea out of my head--" He was afraid to ask what idea. "I always believed you meant it; that you always would love me, just as you said. I was wrong, that's all. Now go! Do go!" He was afraid to go. "No," he said, "let's talk quietly, and like the old friends we were before we--" "Before we weren't. Well?" He was now afraid to say anything. "Look here," she said suddenly, "let _me_ talk. There are some things I do really want to say, since you won't let it go without saying. One is that I know now you're not so much to blame as I thought, and I _do_ forgive you. I mean it, really, not just pretending forgiveness; I forgive you altogether--" "_You_--forgive _me_?" "Yes, didn't you understand that that was what I meant? I didn't want to _say_ 'I forgive you,' and I thought if I sent for you you'd understand." "You seem to have thought your sending for me a more enlightening move than I found it." "Yes--because you don't care now. If you had, you'd have understood." "I really think I should like to understand." "What?" "Exactly what it is you're kind enough to forgive." "Why--your never coming to see me. Benoliel told me before we'd been married a month that he had got my aunt to stop your letters and mine, so I don't blame you now as I did then. But you might have come when you found I didn't write." "I did come. The house was shut up, and the caretaker could give no address." "Did you really? And there was no address? I never thought of that." "I don't suppose you did," he said savagely; "you never _did_ think!" "Oh, I _was_ a fool! I was!" "Yes." "But I have been punished." "Not you!" he said. "You got what you wanted--money, money, money--the only thing I couldn't give you. If it comes to that, why didn't _you_ come and see _me_? I hadn't gone away and left no address." "I never thought of it." "No, of course not." "And, besides, you wouldn't have been there--" "I? I sat day after day waiting for a letter." "I never thought of it," she said again. And again he said: "No, of course you didn't; you wouldn't, you know--" "Ah, don't! please don't! Oh, you don't know how sorry I've been--" "But why did you marry him?" "To spite you--to show you I didn't care--because I was in a rage--because I was a fool! You might as well tell me at once that you're in love with someone else." "Must one always be in love, then?" he sneered.