whole face and manner--that
you _would_. Saw it as plainly at that moment, in spite of your
denial, as I see it now--the cruelty in you, the unfaithfulness,
the willingness to betray. It was for _this_ reason--not because
I heard you refuse, but because I saw you consent--that I could
not forgive you."

She paused abruptly and looked across into my face. What she may
now have read in it I do not know. Then anger swept her on:

"How often had I not heard you bitter and contemptuous towards
people because _they_ are treacherous, cruel! How often have you
talked of _your_ love of nature, of _our_ inhumanity towards lower
creatures! But what have _you_ done?

"You set your fancy upon one of these creatures, lie in wait for
it, beset it with kindness, persevere in overcoming its wildness.
You are amused, delighted, proud of your success. One day--you
remember?--it sang as you had always wished to hear it. It annoyed
you, and you threw a stone at it. With a little less angry aim
you would have killed it. I have never seen anything more inhuman.
How do I know that some day you would not be tired of me, and throw
a stone at _me_? When a woman submits to this once, she will have
them thrown at her whenever she sings at the wrong time, and she
will never know when the right time is.

"Then you thought you were asked to sacrifice it, and now you have
done that. How do I know that some day you might not be tempted
to sacrifice me?" She paused, her voice breaking, and remained
silent, as if unable to get beyond that thought.

"If you have finished," I said, very quietly, "I have something to
say to you, and we need not meet after this.

"I trapped the _bird_; you trapped _me_. I understood you to ask
something of me, to cast me off when I refused it. Such was my
faith in you that beneath your words I did not look for a snare. How
hard it was for me to forgive you what you asked is my own affair
now; but forgive you I did. How hard it was to grant it, that also
is now, and will always be, my own secret. I beg you merely to
believe this: knowing it to be all that you have described--and
far more than you can ever understand--still, I did it. Had you
demanded of me something worse, I should have granted that. If
you think a man will not do wrong for a woman, you are mistaken.
If you think men always love the wrong that they do for the women
whom they love, you are mistaken again.

"You have held up my fau