As he told the story, the grossness of it all came over him,--the offense to the exquisite delicacy of the girl beside him. “But I ought not to have told you this,” he stammered. “What?” she said dully. “About the woman? Oh, as if that mattered!” She turned from him sharply, putting the back of her hand against her lips as though to hide their quiver. Then she burst out: “Oh, why did you tell me? Why? why? Oh, I wish you had not told me!” She shook from head to foot. “But it will make no difference! I will not let it make any difference. I am going to marry you. Only--_I never knew you_!” Those most terrible words, those words with which Love destroys itself, came like a blow between the eyes. He grew very pale. “‘Not make any difference’?” he repeated, blankly, “why, what difference could it make?” She stopped crying, suddenly, and stood, panting, steadying herself by her hands upon his breast, and staring at him. There was something almost terrifying in this sudden pause and in her burning look. “It’s the one thing,” she said, “don’t you see? that lasts. It isn’t like--other things.” “But it was not I,” he said, mechanically. “Not I, the man you--you thought you knew. It was a boy, twenty-three years ago. Amy, Amy! Twenty-three years ago!” She did not listen; she kept repeating to herself: “It shall make no difference. I will not let it make any difference.” Alas, it was not for her to say! The difference was made; the jewel crushed under foot is no more a jewel; the rose thrown into the fire is no more a rose. The stained human soul is no more the innocent human soul. “But you must listen to me, Amy,” he said. “No, I will not speak until you are calm. Sit down. Look at me. Now, listen to what I have to say.” He spoke slowly and gently, as one does to a terrified, unreasonable child. “Dear, I had forgotten it. So little is it a part of my life that I had forgotten it. When I remembered it last night, it was with a sense of astonishment, a sense of pity for the mad boy who did it. I had no personal shame,--it seemed to belong to some one else, whom I watched with sorrow and indignation. I do not believe that to-day, more than twenty years afterwards, I have any business to think of it.” “Then why did you tell me?” she said wearily. “Oh, don’t talk about it any more. I am going to forget it. Good-by. I am going upstairs. I have a headache. Good-by.” She let her hand slip listlessly out of his, and left him standing, blankly, his lips parted for another protest, and the flowers from her belt between his fingers. V As he went out past the drawing-room door, Mrs. Paul called to him:--