She rose, looking down with a childish delight at the sudden burst and roar of the flame. Then she turned, studying his face. The artist in her made her quickly aware of the remnants of the emotion which had stirred him. "What is it?" she said, with the gentleness that was tantalizing to him. "You have a strange look." "Yes," he answered; "I have been behind the scenes." "What do you mean?" "I have been with Mrs. Bloodgood all the afternoon—found her at the station as she was leaving." "Mrs. Bloodgood was running away," she said, puzzled, but with a fear in her eyes that did not escape him. "What—you did not know!" he exclaimed. "Majendie killed himself this afternoon at two o’clock." "Majendie—Mrs. Bloodgood!" She looked at him a moment with a face struck with horror, and then fell back into a chair, seized with the suddenness of the climax. "I beg your pardon; I thought you knew," he blurted out. "No, no—nothing. Tell me—tell me all," she said; and he saw that back of her alarm was a significance to her that heightened the effect of the tragedy. He told her first the bare details of the suicide as he knew them; and then, in response to her hurried questions, began to retell the afternoon. He spoke impulsively, almost as an echo of the drama he had witnessed. Occasionally she stopped him with a more detailed question. Moved out of his self-consciousness, he described, more eloquently than he knew, the conflict between the two women at Mrs. Kildair’s, and the emotions which had suddenly brought him wide-eyed to the spectacle of the black, turbulent river of despair. "I can’t forget it—it haunts me now," he said, when he had ended with Mrs. Bloodgood’s return into the home of her husband. "It makes me see something in life I didn’t understand—that I am just beginning to see." He looked at her. Her face was wet with tears. All at once, astonished, he recalled what he had told. "What have I done?" he cried, aghast. "I had no right to repeat it. I didn’t realize what I was saying!" "Don’t fear," she said, shuddering, and she extended her hands to the fire, as though the recital had frozen her body. "Poor woman—poor, lonely woman!" He sat down near her, close to the fire, and, stretching out his hand, touched her arm. "Listen, Nan," he said, so profoundly that she could not mistake the emotion. "It has made a great difference in me. It may be a mood—it may pass; but I hope it won’t. It makes me dissatisfied. Look here—I don’t want to go on as we have, thrusting and parrying. I don’t want it to be just a game. The real feeling in me toward a woman is different—it’s one of chivalry, I know. Let’s drop all artifices. Let’s be honest with each other—good friends, or something else, as it may come."