“No. Gabriel, listen to me. I am overwhelmed because I broke my promise to you, was not candid. But though I am overwhelmed and unhappy....” “I will not let you be unhappy....” She brushed that aside and went on: “I am not sorry for what I have done. There is not a word of truth in what she says. As you say, I have admitted guilt, being innocent. Gabriel, I was innocent before, but racked, tortured to prove it. Here I have only paid five hundred pounds. Oh, Heaven! give me words, the power to show you. I am pleading with you for my life. For my life, Gabriel ... ours. Let the cheque go through, give her another if necessary, and yet another. I don’t mind buying my happiness.” She pleaded wildly. “Hush! Hush!” He hushed her on his breast, held her to him. “Dear love....” She wept, and the tortures of which she spoke were his. “If only I might yield to you.” “What is it stops you? Obstinacy, self-righteousness....” “If it were either would I not yield now, now, with your dear head upon my breast?” She was sobbing there. “Dear love, you unman me.” His breathing was irregular. “Listen, you unman me, you weaken me. We were both looking forward, and must still be able to look forward. And backward, too. Not stain our name, more than our name, our own personal honour. Margaret, we are clean, there must be no one who can say, ‘Had they been innocent, would they have paid to hide it?’ And this fresh charge, this fresh and hideous accusation! And you would accept all, admit all! My dear, my dear, it must not be, we have not only ourselves to consider.” “Not only ourselves!” He held her closer, whispered in her ear. She had heard him discuss commercial morality with her father, had seen into both their souls; learnt her lover’s creed. One must not best a fellowman, fool though he might be, nor take advantage of his need nor ignorance. She had learnt that there were such things as undue percentage of profit, although no man might know what that profit was. “Child’s talk,” her father had called it, and told him Wall Street would collapse in a day if his tenets were to hold good. Margaret had been proud of him then, although secretly her reason had failed to support him, for it is hard to upset the teaching of a lifetime. To her, it seemed there were conventions, but common sense or convenience might override them. In this particular instance why should she not submit to blackmail, paying for the freedom she needed? But he could not be brought to see eye to eye with her in this. She used all the power that was in her to prove to him that there is no sharp line of demarcation between right and wrong, that one can steer a middle course.