very atom
of respect for herself has left her. If he had personally insulted me at
that moment, I believe I should have submitted to it.

"But he had no idea of insulting me, in the more brutal meaning of the
word. He had me at his mercy, and his way of making me feel it was to
behave with an elaborate mockery of penitence and respect. I let him
speak as he pleased, without interrupting him, without looking at him a
second time, without even allowing my dress to touch him, as we walked
together toward the quieter part of the beach. I had noticed the
wretched state of his clothes, and the greedy glitter in his eyes, in my
first look at him. And I knew it would end--as it did end--in a demand
on me for money.

"Yes! After taking from me the last farthing I possessed of my own, and
the last farthing I could extort for him from my old mistress, he
turned on me as we stood by the margin of the sea, and asked if I could
reconcile it to my conscience to let him be wearing such a coat as
he then had on his back, and earning his miserable living as a
chorus-singer at the opera!

"My disgust, rather than my indignation, roused me into speaking to him
at last.

"'You want money,' I said. 'Suppose I am too poor to give it to you?'

"'In that case,' he replied, 'I shall be forced to remember that you are
a treasure in yourself. And I shall be under the painful necessity of
pressing my claim to you on the attention of one of those two gentlemen
whom I saw with you at the opera--the gentleman, of course, who is now
honored by your preference, and who lives provisionally in the light of
your smiles.'

"I made him no answer, for I had no answer to give. Disputing his right
to claim me from anybody would have been a mere waste of words. He knew
as well as I did that he had not the shadow of a claim on me. But the
mere attempt to raise it would, as he was well aware, lead necessarily
to the exposure of my whole past life.

"Still keeping silence, I looked out over the sea. I don't know why,
except that I instinctively looked anywhere rather than look at _him_.

"A little sailing-boat was approaching the shore. The man steering was
hidden from me by the sail; but the boat was so near that I thought
I recognized the flag on the mast. I looked at my watch. Yes! It was
Armadale coming over from Santa Lucia at his usual time, to visit us in
his usual way.

"Before I had put my watch back in my belt, the means of extricating
myself