"I am safe," he said.

"Yes, Mr. Archdale, you are safe," she answered, rising to meet him as
he stood before her. "I can use no such weapons. It is beneath you to do
it. To say such a thing to me when you know that in any event my great
blessing is that I don't care a pin's worth for you, that I am not a
sighing woman wasting her affection on you, while you--But I don't
suppose you meant your words as an insult."

"Have I ever been rude to you?" he asked, eagerly. "Such a thing would
be an infinite disgrace to me."

"Yes," she said, answering his assertion.

"'While you,'" he repeated, "you said 'while you'--What were you going
to say about me?"

"While you love Katie with all your heart," she answered, "as it is
right you should do." He looked at her, and remembered that for all
her courage it might be that he owed her at least the courtesy of all
observances of respect and regard before others. He had committed an
unpardonable error that day of the dinner at his father's, and he felt a
confusion, as if the color were coming to his face now as he thought of
it.

"You--mistake," he stammered. "I assure you you do. I think I
understand--I"--

She looked up at him. Her face was pale, and there was in it the kind of
compassion that one might imagine a spirit to feel for a wayworn mortal.

"You owe me no explanation," she said. "Let us believe in the victory of
the right, and put this nightmare away from us. Remember you are
speaking only to Katie's friend."

He looked at her, and he could not be sure.

"But you must let me speak," he said, "because I see you mistake. I
don't want you to think because--I confess it--her beauty has a great
fascination for me that I can forget myself, that I--it was like
admiring a beautiful living picture."

She moved nearer, involuntarily.

"Poor fellow!" she said under her breath, "you have been brave; you are
brave, very brave. I've seen it." Then, after a pause in which she
retreated a little and stood considering deeply, she said, "I will tell
you something; it would be too much to be spoken of, only that you don't
understand why I did this thing about the business. Think how I am
placed. I may be standing between my dear friend and the man who was to
have been her husband, and separating them forever. That night when I
came home from your father's I realized it more than ever before; it
filled me so that I could not bear the thought of life. I happened to
have somethi