that you'd only been
laughing at me, I--well, I went pretty far."

He stopped short, and transfixed her paleness with his big, dark eyes.

"Why weren't you honest?" he asked angrily. And then he said again, more
bitterly, more scornfully, than before: "Why wasn't I told about
Holloway?"

She clasped her hands tightly together.

"What has been told you about Mr. Holloway and myself?" she asked.

"Nothing."

"Then why do you speak as you do?"

At that he thrust his hands into his pockets and again began to fling
himself back and forth across the room.

"Perhaps you'll think I'm a sneak," he said, "but I wasn't a sneak. I went
in to see you that Saturday as usual, and when I went upstairs--you were
with him in the library. I heard three words. God! they were enough! I
didn't know that anything could knock the bottom out of life so quickly.
My sun and stars all fell at once--I reckon my Heaven went too. At all
events I went out of your house and down town and I drank and drank--and
all to the truth and honor of women."

He halted with his back to her, and there was silence in the room for many
minutes.

When he faced around after a little, she was weeping bitterly, having
turned in her seat so that her face might be buried in the chair back. Her
whole body was shaking with suppressed sobs. He stood still and stared
down upon her and finally she lifted up her face and said with trembling
lips:

"And all the trouble came from that. Oh, what shall I do? What shall I
say?"

"I don't know what you can do, or what you can say," he said, remaining
still and watching her sincere distress. "I'd feel pretty blamed mean if I
were you, though. Understand, I don't question your good taste in choosing
Holloway, nor your right to love him, nor his right to be there; but I
fail to understand why you were to me just as you were, and I think it was
unfair--out-and-out mean!"

"Mr. Denham," she said almost painfully, "you've made a dreadful mistake."
Then she stopped and moistened her lips. "I don't know just what words you
overheard, but the dramatic instructor was there that afternoon drilling
Mr. Holloway and myself for the parts which we took in the charity play
that week; after he went out we went over one of the scenes alone. Perhaps
you heard part of that." She stopped and almost choked. "Mr. Holloway has
never really made any love to me--perhaps he never wanted to--perhaps I've
never wanted him to."

Jack stared. H