orget the past?"

She had hesitated before, but now Hardy's humility put her in the
position of the superior, and his piteous confession gave her the words
she wanted.

"No. It's no use. Once for all, I do not love you; and if I did, I could
not marry any man who had led the life you have."

"Very well. Remember, Audrey, if I wasn't good enough for you, I was
good enough as men go. Now, I'll go to the devil, and give my whole mind
to it. But I've a great deal to say to you before I go. You object to my
life. Good or bad, it's your own work. It's women like you who make men
like me. You knew my weakness, and played on it. You could have helped
me, if you'd only given me up honestly at first, as another woman would
have done; but you didn't want to do that. I'd have left England long
before, if you'd let me go: you knew it, and you kept me here, though
you saw me going to the bad. Oh, you were an artist in your own line!
You knew the effect of every word, every touch, every movement of yours,
and you went out of your way to--to make goodness impossible for me. God
knows why, but you liked--you _liked_ to see me longing for what you
never meant to give me. And because I didn't come out of that ordeal
quite clean, you talk to me about my life, and tell me you are too good
and pure to marry me. Are you really so very much better than I am,
after all?"

She sat still at first, with her eyes half closed, afraid to look up,
afraid to move or speak, waiting for something to happen, for some one
to come and stop Vincent. But the scourging voice went on with a
relentless brutality, laying bare the secret places of her soul, its
unconscious hypocrisy, its vanity, its latent capacity for evil. She
answered the closing question with an inarticulate sound like a sob. It
might have softened him, if he had not been deaf to everything but his
own passion.

"Don't suppose I flatter myself I'm the only victim. How about that
young fool Ted Haviland?"

She sprang to her feet. Fear, that had made her lie to Ted, made her
tell the truth to Hardy. That fear was deep-rooted; it dated from the
days when they were children and Vincent had the mastery in all their
play.

"Oh, Vincent, promise me, promise me, you won't do anything to Ted! It's
all true about our engagement, but it was more my fault than his."

"I can't believe that, Audrey. I'm very far from blaming him. I've no
doubt you treated him as you did me."

He sat down exhaust