For the first time in my life I saw the two together and might compare them.  Without my will or wish I found my eyes resting upon Ellen.  Without my will or wish, fate, nature, love, I know not what, made selection.

Ellen had not as yet spoken.  “Miss Sheraton,” I repeated to her finally, “is the lady to whom I am engaged to be married.”

The vicious Sheraton temper broke bounds.  There was more than half a sneer on my fiancee’s face.  “I should easily know who this lady is,” she said.

Ellen, flushed, perturbed, would have returned to the gallery, but I raised my hand.  Grace Sheraton went on.  “An engagement is little.  You and he, I am advised, lived as man and wife, forgetting that he and I were already pledged as man and wife.”

“That is not true!” broke in Ellen, her voice low and even.  She at least had herself in hand and would tolerate no vulgar scene.

“I could not blame either of you for denying it.”

“It was Gordon Orme that told her,” I said to Ellen.

She would not speak or commit herself, except to shake her head, and to beat her hands softly together as I had seen her do before when in distress.

“A gentleman must lie like a gentleman,” went on Grace Sheraton, mercilessly.  “I am here to congratulate you both.”

I saw a drop of blood spring from Ellen’s bitten lip.

“What she says is true,” I went on to Ellen.  “It is just as Gordon Orme told your father, and as I admitted to you.  I was engaged to be married to Miss Sheraton, and I am still so engaged.”

Still her small hands beat together softly, but she would not cry out, she would not exclaim, protest, accuse.  I went on with the accusation against myself.

“I did not tell you.  I had and have no excuse except that I loved you.  I am here now for my punishment.  You two shall decide it.”

At last Ellen spoke to my fiancee.  “It is true,” said she.  “I thought myself engaged to Mr. Cowles.  I did not know of you—­did not know that he had deceived me, too.  But fortunately, my father found us before it was too late.”

“Let us spare ourselves details,” rejoined Grace Sheraton.  “He has wronged both of us.”

“Yes, he has done wrong,” I heard Ellen say.  “Perhaps all men do—­I do not want to know.  Perhaps they are not always to blame—­I do not want to know.”

The measure of the two women was there in those words, and I felt it.

“Could you want such a man?” asked Grace Sheraton, bitterly.  I saw Ellen shake her head slowly.  I heard her lips answer slowly.  “No,” she said.  “Could you?”

I looked to Grace Sheraton for her answer, and as I looked I saw a strange and ghastly change come over her face.  “My God!” she exclaimed, reaching out a hand against a tree trunk to steady herself, “Your leavings?  No!  But what is to become of me!”

“You wish him?” asked Ellen.  “You are entirely free.  But now, if you please, I see no reason why I should trouble you both.  Please, now, I shall go.”