“Then why did you do it?”

He shrugged his shoulders with a movement acquired by long residence among Latins.  His smile conveyed the impossibility of explaining himself in a sentence.

“I’ll tell you all about it, if you’d like to hear.”

“I should like it very much.  Remember, I know nothing of what happened after—­after—­”

He noticed a shade of confusion in her manner, and hastened to begin his narrative.

Somewhat to her surprise, he sketched his facts in lightly, but dwelt strongly on the mental and moral necessities his situation forced on him.  He related with some detail the formation of his creed of conduct in the dawn on Lake Champlain, and showed her that according to its tenets he was permitted a kind of action that in other men might be reprehensible.  He came to the story of Evie last of all, and allowed her to see how dominating a part Fate, or Predestination had played in evolving it.

“So you see,” he ended, “it was too late then to do anything—­but to yield.”

“Or withdraw,” she added, softly.

He stared at her a moment, his body bent slightly forward his elbows resting on the arms of his chair.  As a matter of fact, he was thinking less of her words than of her beauty—­so much nobler in type than he remembered it.

“Yes,” he returned, quietly, “I can see that it would strike you in that way.  So it did me—­at first.  But I had to look at the subject all round—­”

“I don’t need to do that.”

He stared at her again.  There was a decision in her words which he found hard to reconcile with the pity in her eyes and the gentle softness of her smile.

“You mean that you don’t want to take my—­necessities—­into consideration.”

“I mean that when I see the one thing right to do, I don’t have to look any further.”

“The one thing right to do—­for you?—­or for me?”

“There’s no reason why I should intervene at all.  I look to you to save me from the necessity.”

He hesitated a minute before deciding whether to hedge or to meet her squarely.

“By giving up Evie and—­clearing out,” he said, with a perceptible hint of defiance.

“I shouldn’t lay stress on your—­clearing out.”

“But you would on my giving up Evie?”

“Don’t you see,” she began, in an explanatory tone, “I, in my own person, have nothing to do with it?  It isn’t for me to say this should be done or that.  You can’t imagine how hard it is for me to say anything at all; and if I speak, it isn’t as myself—­it’s as the voice of a situation.  You must understand as well as I do what that situation imposes.”

“But I don’t intend that a situation shall impose anything—­on me.  I mean to act as master—­”

“But I’m neither so independent nor so strong—­nor is Evie.  You don’t consider her.”

“I don’t have to consider any one.  When I make Evie happy I do all that can be asked of me.”