ever loved a
woman?" she asked.

There was a long pause. He sat in the chair again. "Listen, Mrs.
Winnie"--he began at last.

"Don't call me that!" she exclaimed. "Call me Evelyn--please."

"Very well," he said--"Evelyn. I did not intend to make you unhappy--if
I had had any idea, I should never have seen you again. I will tell
you--what I have never told anybody before. Then you will understand."

He sat for a few moments, in a sombre reverie.

"Once," he said, "when I was young, I loved a woman--a quadroon girl.
That was in New Orleans; it is a custom we have there. They have a
world of their own, and we take care of them, and of the children; and
every one knows about it. I was very young, only about eighteen; and
she was even younger. But I found out then what women are, and what
love means to them. I saw how they could suffer. And then she died in
childbirth--the child died, too."

Montague's voice was very low; and Mrs. Winnie sat with her hands
clasped, and her eyes riveted upon his face. "I saw her die," he said.
"And that was all. I have never forgotten it. I made up my mind then
that I had done wrong; and that never again while I lived would I offer
my love to a woman, unless I could devote all my life to her. So you
see, I am afraid of love. I do not wish to suffer so much, or to make
others suffer. And when anyone speaks to me as you did, it brings it
all back to me--it makes me shrink up and wither."

He paused, and the other caught her breath.

"Understand me," she said, her voice trembling. "I would not ask any
pledges of you. I would pay whatever price there was to pay--I am not
afraid to suffer."

"I do not wish you to suffer," he said. "I do not wish to take
advantage of any woman."

"But I have nothing in the world that I value!" she cried. "I would go
away--I would give up everything, to be with a man like you. I have no
ties--no duties--"

He interrupted her. "You have your husband--" he said.

And she cried out in sudden fury--"My husband!"

"Has no one ever told you about my husband?" she asked, after a pause.

"No one," he said.

"Well, ask them!" she exclaimed. "Meantime, take my word for it--I owe
nothing to my husband."

Montague sat staring into the fire. "But consider my own case," he
said. "_I_ have duties--my mother and my cousin--"

"Oh, don't say any more!" cried the woman, with a break in her voice.
"Say that you don't love me--that is all there is to say! And you