uld use my money to bribe
that fellow to conspire with you!"

"I had none of my own."

"No--nor I either! You used _her_ money.--God!" he groaned, turning away
with clenched hands.

Justine had risen also, and she stood motionless, her hands clasped
against her breast, in the drawn shrinking attitude of a fugitive
overtaken by a blinding storm. He moved back to her with an appealing
gesture.

"And you didn't see--it didn't occur to you--that your doing...as you
did...was an obstacle--an insurmountable obstacle--to our ever ...?"

She cut him short with an indignant cry. "No! No! for it was _not_. How
could it have anything to do with what...came after...with you or me? I
did it only for Bessy--it concerned only Bessy!"

"Ah, don't name her!" broke from him harshly, and she drew back, cut to
the heart.

There was another pause, during which he seemed to fall into a kind of
dazed irresolution, his head on his breast, as though unconscious of her
presence. Then he roused himself and went to the door.

As he passed her she sprang after him. "John--John! Is that all you have
to say?"

"What more is there?"

"What more? Everything!--What right have you to turn from me as if I
were a murderess? I did nothing but what your own reason, your own
arguments, have justified a hundred times! I made a mistake in not
telling you at once--but a mistake is not a crime. It can't be your real
feeling that turns you from me--it must be the dread of what other
people would think! But when have you cared for what other people
thought? When have your own actions been governed by it?"

He moved another step without speaking, and she caught him by the arm.
"No! you sha'n't go--not like that!--Wait!"

She turned and crossed the room. On the lower shelf of the little table
by her bed a few books were ranged: she stooped and drew one hurriedly
forth, opening it at the fly-leaf as she went back to Amherst.

"There--read that. The book was at Lynbrook--in your room--and I came
across it by chance the very day...."

It was the little volume of Bacon which she was thrusting at him. He
took it with a bewildered look, as if scarcely following what she said.

"Read it--read it!" she commanded; and mechanically he read out the
words he had written.

"_La vraie morale se moque de la morale.... We perish because we follow
other men's examples.... Socrates called the opinions of the many
Lamiae._--Good God!" he exclaimed, flinging the boo