erson, somehow; he
didn't see it my way, naturally--will you tell me what would have become
of the--the fortune had I not married you?"

The deathly whiteness of Lynda's face did not stay Truedale's hard
words; he was not thinking of her--even of himself; he was thinking of
the irony of fate in the broad sense.

"The money would have--come to me." Then, as if to divert any further
misunderstanding. "And when I refused it--it would have reverted to
charities."

"I see. And you did this for me, Lyn! How little even you understood.
Now that I have the cursed money I do not know what to do with it--how
to get rid of it. Still it was like you, Lynda, to sacrifice yourself in
order that I might have what you thought was my due. You always did
that, from girlhood. I might have known no other woman could have done
what you have done, no such woman as you, Lyn, without a mighty motive;
but you did not know me, really!"

And now, looking at Lynda, it was like looking at a dead face--a face
from which warmth and light had been stricken.

"I--do not know what you--mean, Con," she said, vaguely.

"Being you, Lyn, you couldn't have taken the money, yourself,
particularly if you had declined to marry me. A lesser woman would have
done it without a qualm, feeling justified in outwitting so cruel a
thing as the bequest; but not you! You saw no other way, so you--you
with your high ideals and clear beliefs--you married the man I am--in
order to--to give me--my own. Oh, Lyn, what a sacrifice!"

"Stop!" Lynda rose from her chair and, by a wide gesture, swept the
marks of her trade far from her. In so doing she seemed to make space to
breathe and think.

"Do you think I am the sort of girl who would sell herself for
anything--even for the justice I might think was yours?"

"Sell yourself? Thank God, between us, Lynda, that does not enter in."

"It would have, were I the woman your words imply. I had nothing to gain
by marrying you, nothing! Nothing--that is--but--but--what you are
unable to see." And then, so suddenly that Truedale could not stop her,
Lynda almost ran from the room.

For an hour Truedale sat in her empty shop and waited. He dared not seek
her and he realized, at last, that she was not coming back to him. His
frame of mind was so abject and personal that he could not get Lynda's
point of view. He could not, as yet, see the insult he had offered,
because he had set her so high and himself so low. He saw her only