her terms, that she need not be
concerned for the outcome; that he meant to shield her.

"Yes; I supposed you would do that; I had expected that."

"And," he went on, as though to anticipate her, to eliminate the
necessity for her further explanations, "you have a right to ask what
you please. Or we can meet again to arrange matters. I am prepared to
satisfy your demands in the fullest sense."

His embarrassment had passed. She had sought the interview, but he had
taken charge of it. Beyond the closed door the stage waited. This was
the briefest interlude before the moment of his triumphant entrance.

Sylvia smiled, an incredulous smile, and shook her head slowly, like a
worn, tired mother whose patience is sorely taxed by a stubborn,
unyielding child at her knee. Her lips trembled, but she bent her head
for a moment and then spoke more quickly than before, as though
overriding some inner spirit that strove rebelliously within her breast.

"I know--almost all I ever need to know. But there are some things you
must tell me now. This is the first--and the last--time that I shall
ever speak to you of these things. I know enough--things I have stumbled
upon--and I have built them up until I see the horror, the blackness.
And I want to feel sure that you, too, see the pity of it all."

Her note of subdued passion roused him now to earnestness, and he framed
a disavowal of the worst she might have imagined. He could calm her
fears at once, and the lines in his face relaxed at the thought that it
was in his power to afford her this relief.

"I married your mother. There was nothing wrong about it. It was all
straight."

"And you thought, oh, you thought I came for that--you believed I came
to have you satisfy me of her honor! I never doubted her!" and she
lifted her head proudly. "And that is what you thought I came for?" The
indignation that flashed in her first stammered sentences died
falteringly in a contemptuous whisper.

Her words had cut him deep; he turned away aimlessly, fingering some
papers on the table beside him. Then he plunged to the heart of the
matter, as though in haste to exculpate himself.

"I never meant that it should happen as it did. I knew her in New York
when we were both students there. My father had been ill a long time; he
was bent upon my marrying the daughter of his old friend Singleton, a
man of wealth and influence in our part of the state. I persuaded your
mother to run away and we