“It was _you_, mother--_you_ were the other woman? You went to see him the day you said you’d been to Meridia?” The girl stood before her now like a blanched Fury. “I _did_ go to Meridia!” Kate Clephane declared. “You went to Baltimore too, then. You went to his house; you saw him. You were the woman who made the scene.” Anne’s voice had mounted to a cry; but suddenly she seemed to regain a sense of her surroundings. At the very moment when Kate Clephane felt the flash of the blade over her head it was arrested within a hair’s-breadth of her neck. Anne’s voice sank to a whisper. “Mother--you did that? It was really you--it was your doing? You’ve always hated him, then? Hated him enough for that?” Ah, that blessed word--_hated_! When the other had trembled in the very air! The mother, bowed there, her shrunken body drawn in on itself, felt a faint expanding of the heart. “No, dear; no; not hate,” she stammered. “But it _was_ you?” She suddenly understood that, all the while, Anne had not really believed it. But the moment for pretense was past. “I did go to see him; yes.” “To persuade him to break our engagement?” “Anne--” “Answer me, please.” “To ask him--to try to make him see....” The girl interrupted her with a laugh. “You made him break our engagement--you did it. And all this time--all these dreadful months--you let me think it was because he was tired of me!” She sprang to her mother and caught her by the wrists. Her hot fingers seemed to burn into Kate’s shivering flesh. “Look at me, please, mother; no, straight in the eyes. I want to try to find out which of us you hated most; which of us you most wanted to see suffer.” The mother disengaged herself and stood up. “As for suffering--if you look at me, you’ll see I’ve had my share.” The girl seemed not to hear. “But why--why--why?” she wailed. A reaction of self-defence came over Kate Clephane. Anne’s white-heat of ire seemed to turn her cold, and her self-possession returned. “What is it you want me to tell you? I did go to see Major Fenno--yes. I wanted to speak to him privately; to ask him to reconsider his decision. I didn’t believe he could make you happy. He came round to my way of thinking. That’s all. Any mother would have done as much. I had the right--” “The right?” Anne shrilled. “What right? You gave up all your rights over me when you left my father for another man!” Mrs. Clephane rose with uncertain steps, and moved toward the door of her bedroom. On the threshold she paused and turned toward her daughter. Strength had come back to her with the thought that after all the only thing that mattered was to prevent this marriage. And that she might still do.