ink of it, Mary.
How can you bring yourself to be so false to a man?"

"I have not been false to him. I have been false to myself, but never
to him. I told him how it was. When you drove me on--"

"Drove you on, Mary?"

"I do not mean to be ungrateful, or to say hard things; but when
you made me feel that if he were satisfied I also might put up with
it, I told him that I could never love him. I told him that I did
love, and ever should love, Walter Marrable. I told him that I had
nothing--nothing--nothing to give him. But he would take no answer
but the one; and I did--I did give it him. I know I did; and I have
never had a moment of happiness since. And now has come this letter.
Janet, do not be cruel to me. Do not speak to me as though everything
must be stern and hard and cruel." Then she handed up the letter, and
Mrs. Fenwick read it as they walked.

"And is he to be made a tool, because the other man has changed his
mind?" said Mrs. Fenwick.

"Walter has never changed his mind."

"His plans, then. It comes to the same thing. Do you know that you
will have to answer for his life, or for his reason? Have you not
learned yet to understand the constancy of his nature?"

"Is it my fault that he should be constant? I told him when he
offered to me that if Walter were to come back to me and ask me
again, I should go to him in spite of any promise that I had made. I
said so as plain as I am saying this to you."

"I am quite sure that he did not understand it so."

"Janet, indeed he did."

"No man would have submitted himself to an engagement with such a
condition. It is quite impossible. What! Mr. Gilmore knew when you
took him that if this gentleman should choose to change his mind at
any moment before you were actually married, you would walk off and
go back to him!"

"I told him so, Janet. He will not deny that I told him so. When
I told him so, I was sure that he would have declined such an
engagement. But he did not, and I had no way of escape. Janet, if you
could know what I have been suffering, you would not be cruel to me.
Think what it would have been to you to have to marry a man you did
not love, and to break the heart of one you did love. Of course Mr.
Gilmore is your friend."

"He is our friend!"

"And, of course, you do not care for Captain Marrable?"

"I never even saw him."

"But you might put yourself in my place, and judge fairly between us.
There has not been a thought or a feeling