ion of a broken organism.

He waited till she had recovered somewhat, and then he repeated his
words.

"I said that you were innocent absolutely; that Fellowes' letter was
the insolence and madness of a voluptuary, that you had only been
wilful and indiscreet, and that--"

In a low, mechanical tone from which was absent any agitation, he told
her all he had said to Rudyard, and what Rudyard had said to him. Every
word had been burned into his brain, and nearly every word was now
repeated, while she sat silent, looking at her hands clasped on the
table before her. When he came to the point where Rudyard went from the
house, leaving Stafford to deal with Fellowes, she burst again into
laughter, mocking, wilful, painful.

"You were left to set things right, to be the lord high
executioner--you, Ian!"

How strange his name sounded on her lips now--foreign, distant,
revealing the nature of the situation more vividly than all the words
which had been said, than all that had been done.

"Rudyard did not think of killing you, I suppose," she went on,
presently, with a bitter motion of the lips, and a sardonic note
creeping into the voice.

"No, I thought of that," he answered, quietly, "as you know." His eyes
sought the weapon on the table involuntarily. "That would have been
easy enough," he added. "I was not thinking of myself, or of Fellowes,
but only of you--and Rudyard."

"Only of me--and Rudyard," she repeated with drooping eyes, which
suddenly became alive again with feeling and passion and wildness.
"Wasn't it rather late for that?"

The words stung him beyond endurance. He rose and leaned across the
table towards her.

"At least I recognized what I had done, what you had done, and I tried
to face it. I did not disguise it. My letter to you proves that. But
nevertheless I was true to you. I did not deceive you--ever. I loved
you--ah, I loved you as few women have been loved! ... But you, you
might have made a mistake where Rudyard was concerned, made the mistake
once, but if you wronged him, you wronged me infinitely more. I was
ready to give up all, throw all my life, my career, to the winds, and
prove myself loyal to that which was more than all; or I was willing to
eliminate myself from the scene forever. I was willing to pay the
price--any price--just to stand by what was the biggest thing in my
life. But you were true to nothing--to nothing--to nobody."

"If one is untrue--once, why be true at all ev