Only that Dives had never known paradise, while she had.  For the man or woman that knows a pure, self-sacrificing love, returned in kind, knows that which, of all things in this world, lies nearest to God and heaven.  There be those who have ears to hear this, and for them is it written.  Julia thought of August’s love with a sinking into despair.  But then returned the memory of his faithlessness, of all she had been compelled to believe and suffer.  Then her agony came back, and she was glad that she had taken a decided step.  Any escape was a relief.  I suppose it is under some such impulse that people kill themselves.  Julia felt as though she had committed suicide and escaped.

Humphreys on his part was not satisfied.  I used the wrong figure of speech awhile ago.  He was not a cat with paw upon the prey.  He was only an angler, and had but hooked his fish.  He had not landed it yet.  He felt how slender was the thread of committal by which he held Julia.  August had her heart.  He had only a word.  The slender vantage that he had, he meant to use adroitly, craftily.  And he knew that the first thing was to close this interview without losing any ground.  The longer she remained bound, the better for him.  And with his craft against the country girl’s simplicity it would have fared badly with Julia had it not been for one defect which always inheres, in a bad man’s plots in such a case.  A man like Humphreys never really understands a pure woman.  Certain detached facts he may know, but he can not “put himself in her place.”

Humphreys remarked with tenderness that Julia must not stay in the night air.  She was too precious to be exposed.  This flattery was comforting to her wounded pride, and she found his words pleasant to her.  Had he stopped here he might have left the field victorious.  But it was very hard for an affianced lover to stop here.  He must part from her in some other way than this if he would leave on her mind the impression that she was irrevocably bound to him.  He stooped quickly with a well-affected devotion and lifted her hand to kiss it.  That act awakened Julia Anderson.  She must have awaked anyhow, sooner or later.  But when one is in the toils of such a man, sooner is better.  The touch of Humphreys’s hand and lips sent a shudder through her frame that Humphreys felt.  Instantly there came to her a perception of all that marriage with a repulsive man signifies.

Not suicide, but perdition.

She jerked her hand from his as though he were a snake.

“Mr. Humphreys, what did I say?  I can’t have you.  I don’t love you.  I’m crazy to-night.  I must take back what I said.”

“No, Julia.  Let me call you my Julia.  You must not break my heart.”  Humphreys had lost his cue, and every word of tenderness he spoke made his case more hopeless.

“I never can marry you—­let me go in,” she said, brushing past him.  Then she remembered that her door was fast on the inside.  She had climbed out the window.  She turned back, and he saw his advantage.