inded you last night that he had other troubles besides--besides--"

"Besides those I may have caused him."

"If you like to put it so. He might have been driven to a desperate act
by loss of fortune."

"Leaving me to face poverty alone. No; I can't think so ill of him as
that. If you suggest it by way of offering me consolation, you're making
a mistake. Of the two, I'd rather think of him as seeking death from
horror--horror of me--than from simple cowardice."

"It would be no new thing in the history of money troubles; and it would
relieve you of the blame."

"To fasten it on him. I see what you mean; but I prefer not to accept
that kind of absolution. If there's any consolation left to me, it's in
the pride of having been the wife of an honorable man. Don't take it
away from me as long as there's any other explanation possible. I see
you're puzzled; but you'd have to be a wife to understand me. Accuse me
of any crime you like; take it for granted that I've been guilty of it;
only don't say that he deserted me in that way. Let me keep at least the
comfort of his memory."

"I want you to keep all the comfort you can get, Diane. God forbid that
I should take from you anything in which you find support. So far am I
from that, that I come to offer you--what I have to offer."

There was a minute's silence before she replied:

"I don't know what that is."

"My name."

There was another minute's silence, during which she looked at him
hardly.

"What for?"

"I should think you'd see."

"I don't. Will you be good enough to explain?"

"Is that necessary? Is this a minute in which to bandy words?"

"It's a minute in which I may be permitted to ask the meaning of
your--generosity."

"It isn't generosity. I'm saying nothing new. I've come only for an
answer to the question I asked you before going to South America, three
months ago."

"Oh, but I thought that question had answered itself."

"Then perhaps it has--in that, whatever reply you might have given me
under other conditions, now you must accept me."

"You mean, I must accept--your name."

"My name, and all that goes with it."

"How could you expect me to do that, after what happened last night?"

"What happened last night shall be--as though it had not happened."

"Could you ever forget it?"

"I didn't say I should forget it. I suppose I couldn't do that any more
than you. I said it should be as though it hadn't been."

"And what about Dorot