ed people abroad at the tea-hour; these things,
meeting and melting into the firelit hospitality at his elbow--or was it
that portentous amenity that melted into _them?_--seemed to form round
him and to put before him, all together, the strangest of circles
and the newest of experiences, in which the unforgettable and the
unimaginable were confoundingly mixed. "Oh, oh, oh!"--he could only
almost howl for it.

And then, while a thick blur for some moments mantled everything,
he knew she had got up, that she stood watching him, allowing for
everything, again all "cleverly" patient with him, and he heard her
speak again as with studied quietness and clearness. "I wanted to take
care of you--it was what I first wanted--and what you first consented
to. I'd have done it, oh I'd have done it, I'd have loved you and helped
you and guarded you, and you'd have had no trouble, no bad blighting
ruin, in all your easy, yes, just your quite jolly and comfortable life.
I showed you and proved to you this--I brought it home to you, as I
fondly fancied, and it made me briefly happy. You swore you cared for
me, you wrote it and made me believe it--you pledged me your honour
and your faith. Then you turned and changed suddenly from one day to
another; everything altered, you broke your vows, you as good as told me
you only wanted it off. You faced me with dislike, and in fact tried not
to face me at all; you behaved as if you hated me--you had seen a girl,
of great beauty, I admit, who made me a fright and a bore."

This brought him straight round. "No, Kate Cookham."

"Yes, Herbert Dodd." She but shook her head, calmly and nobly, in the
now gathered dusk, and her memories and her cause and her character--or
was it only her arch-subtlety, her line and her "idea"?--gave her an
extraordinary large assurance.

She had touched, however, the treasure of his own case--his terrible
own case that began to live again at once by the force of her talking of
hers, and which could always all cluster about his great asseveration.
"No, no, never, never; I had never seen her then and didn't dream of
her; so that when you yourself began to be harsh and sharp with me,
and to seem to want to quarrel, I could have but one idea--which was
an appearance you didn't in the least, as I saw it then, account for or
disprove."

"An appearance--?" Kate desired, as with high astonishment, to know
which one.

"How _shouldn't_ I have supposed you really to care f