st vine.

She began to speak rapidly, not because she thought he wanted his
question answered, but because it gave her something to say. It was like
the effort to keep up by splashing about before going down. She was
picking off the superfluous female flowers, she said, in order that the
strength of the plant might go into the remaining ones. One had to do
that, otherwise--

He broke in abruptly. "Rosie, why did you tell me Thor never said
anything about you and me being married?"

"Oh, what's he been saying?" She clasped her hands on her breast, with a
sudden beseeching alarm.

"It's not a matter of what he's been saying. It's only a matter of what
you say. And I want you to tell me why he's paying me for marrying you."

He spoke brutally not only because his suffering nerves made him
brutally inclined, but in the hope of wringing from her some cry of
indignation. But she only said:

"I didn't know he was doing that."

"But you knew he was going to do something."

It seemed useless to poor Rosie to keep anything back now; she could
only injure her cause by hedging. "I knew he was going to do something,
but he didn't tell me what it would be."

"And why should he do anything at all? What had it to do with him?"

She wrung her hands. "Oh, Claude, I don't know. He came to me. He took
me--he took me by surprise. I never thought of anything like that. I
never dreamt it."

Claude drew a bow at a venture. "You mean that you never thought of
anything like that when he said"--he was obliged to wet his lips with
his tongue before he could get the words out--"when he said he was in
love with you."

She nodded. "And, oh, Claude, I didn't mean it. I swear to you I didn't
mean it. I knew he'd tell you. I was always afraid of him. But I just
thought it _then_--just for a minute. I couldn't have done it--"

He had but the dimmest suspicion of what she meant, but he felt it well
to say: "You could have done it, Rosie, and you would. You're that
kind."

She took one timid step toward him, clasping her hands more
passionately. "Oh, Claude, have mercy on me. If you knew what it is to
be me! Even if I had done it, it wouldn't have been because I loved
_you_ any the less. It would have been for father and mother and
Matt--and--and everything."

The way in which the words rent her made him the more cruel. They made
him the more cruel because they rent him, too. "That doesn't make any
difference, Rosie. You would have done