“No, that is not the tone for you to take with me, Wayne. I have no intention of asking favours. I think,” and she pondered gravely as though anxious to be exact, “I believe I realize the enormity of what I have done perfectly, and I ask forgiveness, mercy, kindness. I have bought my freedom, and I want to be sure I shall have it--and peace. Oh, peace, decency; to stop being a vagabond, flung in the eyes of every man suspected of having money! That mother of mine didn’t sell me at the last; I made the bargain. And now that I bear your father’s name I am not going to dishonour it; I am not going to bring any cloud upon his old age, no disgrace and no shame. There is no nobler man in the world than he is, and as far as I can, with my poor, miserable, hideous past, and my poor wits, I am going to try to live up to him. There is just that one prayer in my heart--after all these temptations, and heartache, heartache, heartache!--that I may be a good woman--a good woman, Wayne! What a wonderful thing it would be if I could--goodness, with peace!” Her voice was low and failed wholly now and then and he found himself watching her lips to read the words that his ears lost. He had been rejoicing in the thought that his father was the victim of a vulgar connivance between an avaricious and designing woman and a willing and not too scrupulous daughter; and the situation was one which he had counted upon playing with in his own fashion. The gossamer web of this hope now fluttered broken on the wind. In the silence that followed he saw for an instant the ignoble and shameful aspect of the thing that had been in his heart. Then a new idea flashed upon him; it was base, base enough to satisfy even this stubborn mood in which Mrs. Craighill’s appeal had left him. He felt a joy in his cunning; his heart warmed as the anger and resentment against his father took form again. The conquest was not to be so easy as he had imagined, but it would be all the sweeter for delay. Vengeance for wrongs and injustices might yet be secured. He experienced a thrill of gratification that his mind had responded to this need in defeat. His imagination built up a new tower of possibilities upon a fresh foundation: it was this new wife who had been deceived in the marriage, not his father! He would gain in the end what he sought and the blow at his father should lose nothing of its force when strengthened by her disappointment and humiliation. It was inconceivable that Roger Craighill would ever treat the woman as an equal; that there could ever be any real sympathy between them. With all the zest of youth in her, and with her love of life, she was sure to seek escape from the bleak zone he, as Roger Craighill’s son, knew well, but whose far-lying levels she now saw rosy with promise.