noted her position,
descended to the platform, and got as near to her as possible. The
train moved off. As Eve turned away among the dispersing people, he
stepped to meet her.

CHAPTER XXV

She gave no sign of surprise. Hilliard read in her face that she had
prepared herself for this encounter.

"Come away where we can talk," he said abruptly.

She walked by him to a part of the station where only a porter passed
occasionally. The echoings beneath the vaulted roof allowed them to
speak without constraint, for their voices were inaudible a yard or two
off. Hilliard would not look into her face, lest he should be softened
to foolish clemency.

"It's very kind of you," he began, with no clear purpose save the
desire of harsh speech, "to ask me to overlook this trifle, and let
things be as before."

"I have said all I _can_ say in the letter. I deserve all your anger."

That was the note he dreaded, the too well remembered note of pathetic
submission. It reminded him with intolerable force that he had never
held her by any bond save that of her gratitude.

"Do you really imagine," he exclaimed, "that I could go on with
make-believe--that I could bring myself to put faith in you again for a
moment?"

"I don't ask you to," Eve replied, in firmer accents. "I have lost what
little respect you could ever feel for me. I might have repaid you with
honesty--I didn't do even that. Say the worst you can of me, and I
shall think still worse of myself."

The voice overcame him with a conviction of her sincerity, and he gazed
at her, marvelling.

"Are you honest _now_? Anyone would think so; yet how am I to believe
it?"

Eve met his eyes steadily.

"I will never again say one word to you that isn't pure truth. I am at
your mercy, and you may punish me as you like."

"There's only one way in which I can punish you. For the loss of _my_
respect, or of my love, you care nothing. If I bring myself to tell
Narramore disagreeable things about you, you will suffer a
disappointment, and that's all. The cost to me will be much greater,
and you know it. You pity yourself. You regard me as holding you
ungenerously by an advantage you once gave me. It isn't so at all. It
is I who have been held by bonds I couldn't break, and from the day
when you pretended a love you never felt, all the blame lay with you."

"What could I do?"

"Be truthful--that was all."

"You were not content with the truth. You forced me to thin