“I can’t explain it to you. Probably I keep my mind in compartments. But never mind about me, Elsa; I’m done for now. I don’t matter. But you mustn’t condemn your uncle along with me. He never led you on to dream dreams, so you haven’t that against him. I want you to believe me that he has been a saviour and not a destroyer, as you seem to think. Don’t lose your faith in him until you understand. Don’t prejudge things till you know everything. Speak to him yourself before you come to a conclusion. He depends on you, more than you think, perhaps. And he’s worked himself to the bone to save those few millions that are left to us. Don’t judge him till you know everything.” She looked at me more kindly than she had done since the beginning. “That’s just what I should have expected from what I knew of you, Mr. Flint. You think of him first and don’t bother about yourself. You aren’t selfish. I can’t understand you, somehow. You seem such a mixture; and until to-day I had no idea you were a mixture at all. It’s all so difficult.” She ended with a choke in her voice and turned towards the car. I followed her and switched on the head-lights, ready to start. She climbed into her seat; and I put the rug around her knees. Just as I was on the point of starting, she spoke again. “You’ve told me all I need to know; but I must hear it from Uncle Stanley himself. I’ll go on being his secretary. I’ll do all I can to help. But I hate you both. Yes, if this is true, I hate him too. What else do you expect? You look on yourselves as saviours, it seems. You may be that, but you certainly are murderers. You can’t even see why I abhor you both. That shows you the gulf between us. Oh, I hate you, I hate you, with this cold calculation of yours: so much food, so many lives. Is that the way to handle human destinies? Drive on.” A little further down the road, she spoke again in a quivering voice which she strove to keep level and cold: “This ends any work together. I couldn’t bear it in your case. With Uncle Stanley it’s different. I will go back to my old place with him. But I never want to see _you_ again, Mr. Flint. I’ve lost two illusions to-day; and I don’t wish to be reminded of them more than I need be. I promised him that I would always help him; and I’m going to keep my promise, cost what it may. But I never promised _you_ anything.” For a few minutes I drove on in silence. The whole world seemed to have fallen around me. All that I had longed for, all my future, seemed to have collapsed in that short afternoon. I was not angry; I don’t think I was even completely conscious of what it all meant. I felt stunned by an unexpected blow. At last I roused myself. “Elsa,” I said, “do you remember the first evening we met?” She never moved. “You sang that dirge from Cymbeline, you remember? When you’re calmer, I want you to think over it. I don’t want you to have any regrets. Mr. Nordenholt can’t last for ever under this strain. Think carefully.”