speak openly like a man. Do you doubt me?'

He did not doubt her, and was forced to say so. 'No, indeed.'

'Oh, with what bated, half-mouthed words you speak,--fit for a girl from
a nursery! Out with it if you have anything to say against me! You owe
me so much at any rate. I have never ill-treated you. I have never
lied to you. I have taken nothing from you,--if I have not taken your
heart. I have given you all that I can give.' Then she leaped to her
feet and stood a little apart from him. 'If you hate me, say so.'

'Winifred,' he said, calling her by her name.

'Winifred! Yes, now for the first time, though I have called you Paul
from the moment you entered the room. Well, speak out. Is there
another woman that you love?'

At this moment Paul Montague proved that at any rate he was no coward.
Knowing the nature of the woman, how ardent, how impetuous she could
be, and how full of wrath, he had come at her call intending to tell
her the truth which he now spoke. 'There is another,' he said.

She stood silent, looking into his face, thinking how she would
commence her attack upon him. She fixed her eyes upon him, standing
quite upright, squeezing her own right hand with the fingers of the
left. 'Oh,' she said, in a whisper 'that is the reason why I am told
that I am to be--off.'

'That was not the reason.'

'What,--can there be more reason than that,--better reason than that?
Unless, indeed, it be that as you have learned to love another so also
you have learned to--hate me.'

'Listen to me, Winifred.'

'No, sir; no Winifred now! How did you dare to kiss me, knowing that
it was on your tongue to tell me I was to be cast aside? And so you
love--some other woman! I am too old to please you, too rough,--too
little like the dolls of your own country! What were your--other
reasons? Let me hear your--other reasons, that I may tell you that they
are lies.'

The reasons were very difficult to tell, though when put forward by
Roger Carbury they had been easily pleaded. Paul knew but little about
Winifred Hurtle, and nothing at all about the late Mr Hurtle. His
reasons curtly put forward might have been so stated. 'We know too
little of each other,' he said.

'What more do you want to know? You can know all for the asking. Did I
ever refuse to answer you? As to my knowledge of you and your affairs,
if I think it sufficient, need you complain? What is it that you want
to know? Ask anything and I will tell you. Is i