re than her hot
disdain, her pride got the better of her again, and she tried to
defend herself with many a simple plea, saying between a sob and a
burst of wrath that if she had deceived him, and said what was barely
true, it was only from thinking to defend his happiness.

"And why," she cried, "why should I marry you while loving him?"

Then, for the first time, he raised his head and answered her--

"Because of your pride, Greeba--your fatal pride," he said; "your
pride that has been your bane since you were a child and you went to
London and came back the prouder of your time there. I thought it was
gone; but the old leaven works as potently as before, and rises up to
choke me. I ought to have known it, Greeba, that your old lightness
would lead you to some false dealing yet, and I have none but myself
to blame."

Now if he had said this with any heat of anger, or with any rush of
tears, she would have known by the sure instinct of womanhood that he
loved her still, and was only fighting against love in vain. Then she
would have flung herself into his arms with a burst of joy and a cry
of "My darling, you are mine, you are mine." But instead of that he
spoke the hard words calmly, coldly, and without so much as a sigh,
and by that she knew that the heart of his love had been killed
within him, and now lay dead before her. So, stung to the quick, she
said, "You mean that I deserted Jason because he was poor, and came
here to you because you are rich. It is false--cruelly, basely false.
You know it is false; or, if you don't, you ought."

"I am far from rich, Greeba," he said, "although to your pride I may
seem so, seeing that he whom you left for the sake of the poor glory
of my place here was but a friendless sailor lad."

"I tell you it is false," she cried. "I could have loved my husband
if he had never had a roof over his head. And yet you tell me that?
You that should know me so well! How dare you?" she cried, and by the
sudden impulse of her agony, with love struggling against anger, and
fire and tears in her eyes together, she lifted up her hand and
struck him on the breast.

That blow did more than any tearful plea to melt the icy mistrust
that had all night been freezing up his heart, but before he had time
to reply Greeba was on her knees before him, praying of him to
forgive her, because she did not know what she was doing.

"But, Michael," she said again, "it isn't true. Indeed, indeed, it is
n