ope not," he stammered.

"And yet you appear to think it reasonable that I should have done so."

He could not quite understand the tone of her words.

"I think it reasonable you did not understand," he declared. "How could
you? Nobody could have understood. It was the maddest, the most
inconceivable situation."

"Possibly. Yet if the positions had been reversed, if it had been you who
had failed to understand my actions, would you not still have trusted?"

"Yes," said Antony, conviction in the syllable. He did not think to ask
her how it was that she understood now. The simple fact that she did
understand swept aside, made trivial every other consideration.

"You mean that a man's trust holds good under any circumstances, whereas
a woman's trust will obviously fail before the first difficulty?" she
demanded.

"I did not mean that," cried Antony hotly.

"No?" she queried mockingly.

"It was not, on my part, a question of _trust_ alone," said Antony
deliberately. He looked straight at her as he spoke the words.

The Duchessa dropped her eyes. A crimson colour tinged her cheeks, crept
upwards to her forehead.

There was a dead silence. Then----

"Will you help me to re-build the foundation?" asked the Duchessa.

"It was never destroyed," said Antony.

"Mine was," she replied steadily. "Will you forgive me?"

"There can be no question of forgiveness," he replied hoarsely.

Her face went to white.

"You refuse?"

"There is nothing to forgive," he said.

Again she drew a quick breath.

"There is," she said.

"I think not," he replied.

The Duchessa looked towards the fire.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because," he replied slowly, "between you and me there can be no
question of forgiveness. To forgive, one must acknowledge a wrong done to
one. I acknowledge none."

She turned towards him.

"You cared so little, you felt none?"

"No," responded Antony, the words leaping to his lips, "I cared so much I
felt none."

"Ah," she breathed, and stopped. "Then you will go back to the old
footing?" she asked.

Antony's heart beat furiously.

"I cannot," he replied.

"Why?" she demanded, speaking very low.

Antony drew a deep breath.

"Because I love you," he said quietly.

Again there was a dead silence. At last Antony spoke quietly.

"Of course I have no right to tell you that," he said. "But you may as
well know the whole truth now. It was because of that love that I agreed
to this busines