"You have no right to say that. You remember what we once were. Whose fault is it that I am where I am to-day? When you broke our engagement and married old Jeffries to gratify your social ambition, you ruined my life. You didn't destroy my love--you couldn't kill that. You may forbid me everything--to see you--to speak to you--even to think of you, but I can never forget that you are the only woman I ever cared for. If you had married me, I might have been a different man. And now, just when I want you most, you deny me even your friendship. What have I done to deserve such treatment? Is it fair? Is it just?" Alicia had listened with growing impatience. It was only with difficulty that she contained herself. Now she interrupted him hotly: "I broke my engagement with you because I found that you were deceiving me--just as you deceived others." "It's a lie!" broke in Underwood. "I may have trifled with others, but I never deceived you." Alicia rose and, crossing the room, carelessly inspected one of the pictures on the wall, a study of the nude by Bouguereau. "We need not go into that," she said haughtily. "That is all over now. I came to ask you what this letter--this threat----means. What do you expect to gain by taking your life unless I continue to be your friend? How can I be a friend to a man like you? You know what your friendship for a woman means. It means that you would drag her down to your own level and disgrace her as well as yourself. Thank God, my eyes are now opened to your true character. No self-respecting woman could afford to allow her name to be associated with yours. You are as incapable of disinterested friendship as you are of common honesty." Coldly she added: "I hope you quite understand that henceforth my house is closed to you. If we happen to meet in public, it must be as strangers." Underwood did not speak. Words seemed to fail him. His face was set and white. A nervous twitching about the mouth showed the terrible mental strain which the man was under. In the excitement he had forgotten about Howard's presence on the divan behind the screen. A listener might have detected the heavy breathing of the sleeper, but even Alicia herself was too preoccupied to notice it. Underwood extended his arms pleadingly: "Alicia--for the sake of Auld Lang Syne!"