“Stiff-necked blighter! He’d talk ethics if she were dying. What does it matter whether it was right or wrong? Anyway, I got rid of the woman for her, set her mind at rest. I bet my way was as good as any _he’d_ have found! Now I suppose he’ll argue her round until she looks upon me as the villain of the play.” In which, as the sequel shows, he wronged his lady love. “Insufferable prig!” And with that and a few more muttered epithets he went off to endure a hideous few days, fearing for her all the time, in the hands of such a man as Gabriel Stanton, whom he deemed hard and self-righteous. But he need not have feared. The two men were poles apart in temperament, education, and environment. Circumstances aided in making them intolerant of each other. Their judgment was biased. Margaret saw them both more clearly than they saw each other. Her lover was the stronger, finer man, had the higher standard. And he was right, right this time, as always. Yet she thought sympathetically of the other and the weakness that led him to compromise. The Christian Scientist should not have been paid, she should have been prosecuted. Margaret saw it now,—she, too, had not seen it at the moment. She confessed herself a coward. “But our happiness was at stake, our whole happiness. In less than three weeks now....” Now that they were alone Gabriel could show his quality. The thing she had done was indefensible. And he had hardly a hope that it would achieve its object. He, himself, would not have done evil that good might come of it, submitted, admitted ... the blood rushed to his face and he could not trust himself even to think of what had practically been admitted. But she had done it for love of him to secure their happiness together. What man but would be moved by such an admission, what lover? He could not hold out against her, nor continue to express his doubts. “Must we talk any more about it? I can’t bear your reproaches. Gabriel, don’t reproach me any more.” She was nestling in the shelter of his arms. “You know why I did it. I wish you would be glad.” “My darling, I wish I could be. It was not your fault. I ought to have come down. You ought not to have been left alone, or with an unscrupulous person like this doctor.” “Peter acted according to his lights. He did it for the best, he thought only of me.” “His lights are darkness, his best outrageous. Never mind, I will not say another word, only you must promise me faithfully, swear to me that if you do hear any more of this woman, or of the circumstance, from this or any other quarter, you will do nothing without consulting me, you will send for me at once....” Margaret promised, Margaret swore. “I want to lean upon your strength. I have so altered I don’t know myself. Love has loosened, weakened me. I am no longer as I was, proud, self-reliant. Gabriel, don’t let me be sorry that I love you. I am startled by myself, by this new self. What have you done to me? Is this what love means—weakness?”