But she would never forgive him. He had wounded her too cruelly, too wantonly, for forgiveness. He had laid her pride too low. For even yet, in all her furious hatred of him, she knew herself bound by a chain that no effort of hers might break. Even yet she thrilled to the sound of that soft, Irish voice, and was keenly, painfully aware of him when he drew near. He did not know it, so she told herself over and over again. No one knew, or ever would know. That advantage, at least, was hers, and she would carry it to her grave. But yet she longed passionately, vindictively, to punish him for the ruin he had wrought, to humble him--this faultless knight, this regimental hero, at whose shrine everybody worshipped--as he had once dared to humble her; to make him care, if it were ever so little--only to make him care--and then to trample him ruthlessly underfoot, as he had trampled her. She began to wonder how long he meant to maintain that uncompromising silence. From across the water came the gay voices of their fellow-guests, but no other boat was very near them. His face was in the shadow, and she had no clue to his mood. For a while longer she endured his silence. Then at length she spoke: "Major Hone!" He started slightly, as one coming out of deep thought. "Why don't you make conversation?" she asked, with a little cynical twist of the lips. "I thought you had a reputation for being entertaining." "Will it entertain you if I ask for an apology?" said Hone. "An apology!" She repeated the words sharply, and then softly laughed. "Yes, it will, very much." "And yet you owe me one," said Hone. "I fear I do not always pay my debts," she answered. "But you will find it difficult to convince me on this occasion that the debt exists." "Faith, I shall not try!" he returned, with a doggedness that met and overrode her scorn. "The game isn't worth the candle. I know you will think ill of me in either case." "Why, Major Hone?" He met her eyes in the moonlight, and she felt as if by sheer force he held them. "Because," he said slowly, "I have made it impossible for you to do otherwise." "Surely that is no one's fault but your own?" she said. "I blame no one else," said Hone. And with that he bent again to his work as though he had been betrayed into plainer speaking than he deemed advisable, and became silent again. Nina Perceval trailed her hand in the water and watched the ripples. Those few words of his had influenced her strangely. She had almost for the moment forgotten her enmity. But it returned upon her in the silence. She began to remember those bitter years that stretched behind her, the blind regrets with which he had filled her life--this man who had tricked her, lied to her--ay, and almost broken her heart in those far-off days of her girlhood, before she had learned to be cynical. "And even if I did believe you," she said, "what difference would it make?"