Then there was silence again for a time. The firelight played over Mrs. Vernon’s face and figure and the masses of pale blue draperies, and over the tip of her pale blue slippers, upon which stones sparkled. Her eyes were fixed upon Sir Percy, and, raising herself in her chair, she leaned over towards him and said calmly: "Guy Vernon, you know, has been dead more than a year." Sir Percy knew what she meant--that she was now free. "I had not heard it," he replied with equal calmness. "I hope that your latter days with him were happier than the earlier ones." "I had not seen or spoken with him for several years. We had much unhappiness together. If I had been happily married----" She broke off suddenly and then continued after a while: "It would be hypocritical for me to express any grief at Guy Vernon’s death, and, whatever I am, I am not a hypocrite--except to my father. I love him, for I can love, and he is the one person I really fear--except you." As she spoke she leaned forward again, and, closing her fan, almost laid the tip of it upon Sir Percy’s hand, outstretched on the arm of his chair. In another instant it would have been a caress, but Sir Percy coolly moved his hand and Mrs. Vernon quickly withdrew the fan. "General Talbott is a man very much to be feared as well as loved," was his answer. "Whenever the memory comes to me of what I owe him and how I repaid him I feel like shooting myself." "But we were very happy in that time," murmured Alicia, leaning back and letting her hands fall in her lap as she watched the fire. Sir Percy rose and Alicia Vernon rose too. "You know very well," she said, showing some agitation, "why I came here. I wanted to see you. I am a fool, of course--every woman is about some man. I have tried to forget you, I have been trying to do that for twelve years, but I have not yet succeeded. Do you remember those tragic stories of the Middle Ages, when a woman who loved a man would dress herself as a page and follow him to the Crusades? Such are the women who knew how to love; not those conventional creatures who sit by the fire and to whom one man is the same as another." As she spoke her eyes filled and two large bright tears dropped upon her cheeks, and she pressed her handkerchief to her eyes with a trembling hand. Sir Percy had meant to be stern with her, but no man, if he be a man, can be stern to a woman in tears. He remained silent for a minute or two, moved, in spite of himself, at Alicia Vernon’s emotion. "Alicia," he said, and then paused. It was the first time he had called her by her name for years, and as he spoke her eyes lighted up and a sad smile played about her mouth. "I, least of all human beings, can reproach you. I am willing to take upon myself all the guilt, all the shame, of that bygone time, but it was guilt and shame, and let us not deceive ourselves."