ou're right," and he never knew how her heart leaped toward him at
his words. "I'm a pretty bad chap, I guess. But I want you to give me
another chance and I'll try not to make you pay for it, either," he
added, with a flicker of his saucy humor.

"I'll give you a chance, then," she said, and she shrank from the hand
he put out toward her. "Go back and tell that girl you're free now, and
if she wants you she can have you."

"Is that what you call a chance?" demanded Jeff, between anger and
injury. For an instant he imagined her deriding him and revenging
herself.

"It's the only one I can give you. She's never tried to make you do what
was right, and you'll never be tempted to hurt her."

"You're pretty rough on me, Cynthy," Jeff protested, almost plaintively.
He asked, more in character: "Ain't you afraid of making me do right,
now?"

"I'm not making you. I don't promise you anything, even if she won't
have you."

"Oh!"

"Did you suppose I didn't mean that you were free? That I would put a
lie in your mouth for you to be true with?"

"I guess you're too deep for me," said Jeff, after a sulky silence.

"Then it's all off between us? What do you say?"

"What do you say?"

"I say it's just as it was before, if you care for me."

"I care for you, but it can never be the same as it was before. What
you've done, you've done. I wish I could help it, but I can't. I can't
make myself over into what I was twenty-four hours ago. I seem another
person, in another world; it's as if I died, and came to life somewhere
else. I'm sorry enough, if that could help, but it can't. Go and tell
that girl the truth: that you came up here to me, and I sent you back to
her."

A gleam of amusement visited Jeff in the gloom where he seemed to be
darkling. He fancied doing that very thing with Bessie Lynde, and the
wild joy she would snatch from an experience so unique, so impossible.
Then the gleam faded. "And what if I didn't want her?" he demanded.

"Tell her that too," said Cynthia.

"I suppose," said Jeff, sulkily, "you'll let me go away and do as I
please, if I'm free."

"Oh yes. I don't want you to do anything because I told you. I won't
make that mistake again. Go and do what you are able to do of your own
free will. You know what you ought to do as well as I do; and you know a
great deal better what you can do."

They had reached Cynthia's house, and they were talking at the side
door, as they had the night before,