firm
belief that my Creator knows best has enabled me to live on, has kept me
from ending it."

"Why should you be more unhappy than I am? Nothing could make _me_ end
my life now."

She looked at him in silence.

"If you look at me in that way--" Winthrop began.

She left her place. He stood where he was, watching her, but he was not
paying much heed to what she was saying, now. He had the great fact,
man-like, he was enjoying it; it was enough for the present--after all
these years.

She seemed to see how little impression she had made. She came back to
the old stone a second time to complete her story. "I tried so hard--I
was so glad when I saw how you disliked me," she began.

"It wasn't dislike."

"I thought it was; and I was miserably glad. What did I take charge of
Garda for but because I thought you loved her? That should be my
penance, she should be like my own sister, and I would do everything
that I possibly could for her, for her sake and yours. She was so very
beautiful--"

He interposed here. "Yes, she was beautiful; but beautiful for
everybody. Your beauty is dearer, because it is kept, in its fullest
sweetness, for the man you love."

But no blush rose in her face, she was too unhappy for that; she was
absorbed, too, in trying to reach him, to touch him, so that he would
see what must be, as she saw it. "I did all I could for her," she went
on, earnestly--"you know I did; I tried to influence her, I tried to
love her; and I did love her. I was sure, too, that she cared for you--"

"It isn't everybody, you must remember, that has your opinion of me,"
interrupted her listener, delightedly.

"But she herself had told me--Garda had told me that she---- However, I
begin to think that I have never comprehended Garda."

"Don't try."

"I love her all the same. That afternoon when she was on her way to
Madam Giron's to see Lucian, and I took her place, it seemed to me that
day that an opportunity had been given to me to complete my penance to
the full, and crush out my own miserable folly. I could save her in your
eyes, and I could lose myself; for, after that, you could have, of
course, only contempt for me. I believed that you loved her, I didn't
see how you could help it (I don't see very well even now). And I
believed, too, that under all her fancies, her real affection was yours;
or would come back to you."

"All wrong, Margaret, the whole of it. Overstrained, exaggerated."

"It may be so