creature which would strike me as being evil incarnate.
Don't you be ashamed!"

She sighed, looked up with her pale, candid gaze and a timid expression
on her face, and murmured:

"You don't seem to want to know what he was saying."

"About poor Morrison? It couldn't have been anything bad, for the poor
fellow was innocence itself. And then, you know, he is dead, and nothing
can possibly matter to him now."

"But I tell you that it was of you he was talking!" she cried.

"He was saying that Morrison's partner first got all there was to get
out of him, and then, and then--well, as good as murdered him--sent him
out to die somewhere!"

"You believe that of me?" said Heyst, after a moment of perfect silence.

"I didn't know it had anything to do with you. Schomberg was talking
of some Swede. How was I to know? It was only when you began telling me
about how you came here--"

"And now you have my version." Heyst forced himself to speak quietly.
"So that's how the business looked from outside!" he muttered.

"I remember him saying that everybody in these parts knew the story,"
the girl added breathlessly.

"Strange that it should hurt me!" mused Heyst to himself; "yet it does.
I seem to be as much of a fool as those everybodies who know the story
and no doubt believe it. Can you remember any more?" he addressed the
girl in a grimly polite tone. "I've often heard of the moral advantages
of seeing oneself as others see one. Let us investigate further. Can't
you recall something else that everybody knows?"

"Oh! Don't laugh!" she cried.

"Did I laugh? I assure you I was not aware of it. I won't ask you
whether you believe the hotel-keeper's version. Surely you must know the
value of human judgement!"

She unclasped her hands, moved them slightly, and twined her fingers as
before. Protest? Assent? Was there to be nothing more? He was relieved
when she spoke in that warm and wonderful voice which in itself
comforted and fascinated one's heart, which made her lovable.

"I heard this before you and I ever spoke to each other. It went out of
my memory afterwards. Everything went out of my memory then; and I was
glad of it. It was a fresh start for me, with you--and you know it. I
wish I had forgotten who I was--that would have been best; and I very
nearly did forget."

He was moved by the vibrating quality of the last words. She seemed to
be talking low of some wonderful enchantment, in mysterious terms of
specia