esides, companionship is the breath of
life to me, you understand; and I seldom manage to make friends with
women."

"The other kind of friendship is an edged tool."

"And therefore irresistible! It's like fencing with the buttons off
the foils."

"You speak from much practical experience?"

"Yes. I have had my share of it. But please believe me, Eldred,"--she
hesitated,--"I have been as loyal to you in word and deed, all these
years, as if I had borne your name, and lived under your roof. In
spite of my weakness for edged tools, I have never let any man tell me
that he loved me since you told me so yourself, in the dark ages. And
if a few have wanted to do so, I could hardly help that, could I?"

"No more than you could help breathing or sleeping," he answered with a
slow strong pressure of her hand.

"I know I ought not to have let Major Garth see so much of me after I
saw how it was with him, but--since it's the whole truth to-night--I
confess your aloofness hurt me so, that I wanted to see if I could
rouse you to a spark of feeling by hurting you back, and I chose the
weapon readiest to my hand."

"You struck deep with it. Does the knowledge give you any
satisfaction?"

"It fills my cup of shame to overflowing. Yet,--come to think of
things, you did much the same without realising it."

"Which makes a vast difference, surely?"

"Not to me, _mon ami_. It is only God who judges by the intention;
possibly because He never suffers from the action."

"Quita! That's irreverent!"

"Is it? I'm sorry if it sets your Scottish prickles on end! Are
you . . . a very religious man, Eldred?"

"I believe in God," he answered simply.

A short silence followed the statement. Then Quita spoke.

"But you see, don't you, dear man, that I spoke truth. My pain was
none the less sharp because you inflicted it unwittingly. It's one of
the things people are apt to forget."

"Your pain? Before God I never dreamed that any act of mine could give
you a minute's uneasiness; though Mrs Desmond . . ."

"Don't begin about Mrs Desmond, please!" She drew her hand away with a
touch of impatience. "She is everything that is perfect, of course.
But I hate her; and I believe I always shall."

Lenox turned on his elbow and looked up into her face.

"My dear . . . I can't let you speak so of my best friend. We owe her
everything, you and I. You shall hear about it all one of these days.
And apart from that, she i