She lay in his arms, her eyes looking straight up to his. "I never meant to do it, dear,--never meant to win your love in the first place. I always knew I wasn't worthy of it. I think I told you so. Dicky, listen! I've had a horrid life. My mother was divorced when Muff and I were youngsters at school. My father died only a year after, and no one ever cared what happened to us after that. We had an aunt--Lady Beatrice Farringmore--and she launched me in society when I left school. But she never cared--she never cared. She was far too busy with her own concerns. I just went with the crowd and pleased myself. No one ever took anything seriously in our set. It was just a mad rush of gaiety from morning till night. We were like a lot of empty-headed, mischievous children, horribly selfish of course, but not meaning any harm--at least not most of us. Everyone had a nickname. It was the fashion. It was Saltash who first called me Juliet. He said I was so tragically in earnest--which was really not true in those days. And I called him Charles Rex." She paused, for Dick's arms had tightened about her. "Go on!" he said, in a low voice. "I suppose he--made love to you, did he?" "Everyone did that," she said. "He was just a specimen of the rest--except that I always somehow knew he had more heart. It was just a game with us all. It used to frighten me rather at first till--till I got used to it. When I was quite young I had rather a bitter lesson. I began to care for a man who I thought was in earnest, and I found he wasn't. After that, I never needed another. I played the game with the rest. Sometimes I hurt people, but I didn't care. I always said it was their fault for being taken in." "That doesn't sound like you," he said. "That was me," she returned, with a touch of recklessness, "till I read that first book of yours--_The Valley of Dry Bones_. That brought me up short. It shocked me horribly. You cut very deep, Dicky. I'm carrying the scars still." He bent without words and set his lips to her forehead, keeping them there in mute caress while she went on. "I had just begun to play with Ivor Yardley. He was my latest catch, and--I was rather proud of him. He didn't trouble to pursue many women. And then--after reading that book--I felt so evil, so unspeakably ashamed, that, when I knew he was really in earnest, I didn't throw him off like the rest. I accepted him." She shuddered suddenly and twined her arm about her husband's neck. "Dicky, I--went through hell--after that. I tried--I tried very hard--to be honourable--to keep my word. But--when the time drew near--I simply couldn't. He always knew--he must have known--I didn't love him. But he just wanted me, and he didn't care. And so--almost at the last moment--I let him down--I ran away. And, oh, Dicky, the peace of this place after all that misery and turmoil! You can't imagine what it was like. It was heaven. And I thought--I thought it was going to be quite easy to be good!"