I have caused you any pain."

"Well, then, you are noble; when look, what pain I have caused you! Yet
not more than myself. No, not so much. I hope not so much!"

Truly there is thought which passes from mind to mind. Suddenly the
thing in her mind sped across to mine. I looked at her suddenly, in my
eyes also, perhaps, the horror which I felt.

"It was you!" I exclaimed. "It was you! Ah, now I begin to understand!
How could you? You parted us! _You_ parted me from Elisabeth!"

"Yes," she said regretfully, "I did it It was my fault."

I rose and drew apart from her, unable to speak. She went on.

"But I was not then as I am now. See, I was embittered, reckless,
desperate. I was only beginning to think--I only wanted time. I did not
really mean to do all this. I only thought--Why, I had not yet known you
a day nor her an hour. 'Twas all no more than half a jest"

"How could you do it?" I demanded. "Yet that is no more strange. How
_did_ you do it?"

"At the door, that first night. I was mad then over the wrong done to
what little womanhood I could claim for my own. I hated Yturrio. I hated
Pakenham. They had both insulted me. I hated every man. I had seen
nothing but the bitter and desperate side of life--I was eager to take
revenge even upon the innocent ones of this world, seeing that I had
suffered so much. I had an old grudge against women, against women, I
say--against _women!_"

She buried her face in her hands. I saw her eyes no more till Threlka
came and lifted her head, offering her a cup of drink, and so standing
patiently until again she had dismissal.

"But still it is all a puzzle to me, Madam," I began. "I do not
understand."

"Well, when you stood at the door, my little shoe in your pocket, when
you kissed my hand that first night, when you told me what you would do
did you love a woman--when I saw something new in life I had not
seen--why, then, in the devil's resolution that no woman in the world
should be happy if I could help it, I slipped in the body of the slipper
a little line or so that I had written when you did not see, when I was
in the other room. 'Twas that took the place of Van Zandt's message,
after all! Monsieur, it was fate. Van Zandt's letter, without plan, fell
out on my table. Your note, sent by plan, remained in the shoe!"

"And what did it say? Tell me at once."

"Very little. Yet enough fora woman who loved and who expected. Only
this: '_In spite of that other woman, c