heard that Mrs. Langdon had recovered her husband."

She winced, as if I had struck her. "Oh!" she murmured. If she had been
the ordinary woman, who in every crisis with man instinctively resorts to
weakness' strongest weakness, tears, I might have a different story to
tell. But she fought back the tears in which her eyes were swimming and
gathered herself together. "That is brutal," she said, with not a touch of
haughtiness, but not humbly, either. "But I deserve it."

"There was a time," I went on, swept in a swift current of cold rage,
"there was a time when I would have taken you on almost any terms. A man
never makes a complete fool of himself about a woman but once in his life,
they say. I have done my stretch--and it is over."

She sighed wearily. "Langdon came to see me soon after I left your house,
and went to my uncle," she said. "I will tell you what happened."

"I do not wish to hear," replied I, adding pointedly, "I have been waiting
ever since you left for news of your plans."

She grew white, and my heart smote me. She came into the room and seated
herself. "Won't you stop, please, for a moment longer?" she said. "I hope
that, at, least, we can part without bitterness. I understand now that
everything is over between us. A woman's vanity makes her belief that a man
cares for her die hard. I am convinced now--I assure you, I am. I shall
trouble you no more about the past. But I have the right to ask you to hear
me when I say that Langdon came, and that I myself sent him away; sent him
back to his wife."

"Touching self-sacrifice," said I ironically.

"No," she replied. "I can not claim any credit. I sent him away only
because you and Alva had taught me how to judge him better. I do not
despise him as do you; I know too well what has made him what he is. But
I had to send him away."

My comment was an incredulous look and shrug. "I must be going," I said.

"You do not believe me?" she asked.

"In my place, would you believe?" replied I. "You say I have taught you.
Well, you have taught me, too--for instance, that the years you've spent on
your knees in the musty temple of conventionality before false gods have
made you--fit only for the Langdon sort of thing. You can't learn how to
stand erect, and your eyes can not bear the light."

"I am sorry," she said slowly, hesitatingly, "that your faith in me died
just when I might, perhaps, have justified it. Ours has been a pitiful
series of misunderst