But Grace Sheraton sprang to her side as she turned.  I was amazed at her look.  It was entreaty on her face, not anger!  She held out her hands to Ellen, her face strangely distorted.  And then I saw Ellen’s face also change.  She put out her hand in turn.

“There,” she said, “time mends very much.  Let us hope—­” Then I saw her throat work oddly, and her words stop.

No man may know the speech with which women exchange thought.  I saw the two pass a few paces apart, saw Grace Sheraton stoop and whisper something.

It was her last desperate resource, a hazard handsomely taken.  It won, as courage should, or at least as much as a lie may win at any time; for it was a bitter, daring, desperate shaming lie she whispered to Ellen.

As Ellen’s face turned toward me again I saw a slow, deep scorn invade it.  “If I were free,” she said to me, “if you were the last man on earth, I would not look at you again.  You deceived me—­but that was only a broken word, and not a broken life!  This girl—­indeed she may ask what will become of her!”

“I am tired of all these riddles,” I broke out, my own anger now arising, and myself not caring to be made thus sport of petticoats.

“Your duty is clear,” went on my new accuser, flashing out at me.  “If you have a trace of manhood left, then let the marriage be at once—­to-morrow.  How dare you delay so long!” She choked in her own anger, humiliation, scorn—­I know not what, blushed in her own shame.

Orme was right.  I have always been a stupid ass.  It took me moments to grasp the amazing truth, to understand the daring stroke by which Grace Sheraton had won her game.  It had cost her much.  I saw her standing there trembling, tearful, suffering, her eyes wet.  She turned to me, waiting for me to save her or leave her damned.

I would not do it.  All the world will say that I was a fool, that I was in no way bound to any abhorrent compact, that last that any man could tolerate.  Most will say that I should have turned and walked away from both.  But I, who have always been simple and slow of wit, I fear, and perhaps foolish as to certain principles, now felt ice pass through all my veins as my resolution came to me.

I could not declare against the woman who had thus sworn against me.  With horror I saw what grotesque injustice was done to me.  I broke out into a horrible laughter.

I had said that I had come for my punishment, and here it was for me to take.  I had told Orme that one day I would pay him for my life.  Here now was Orme’s price to be paid!  If this girl had not sinned with me, she had done so by reason of me.  It was my fault; and a gentleman pays for his fault in one way or another.  There seemed to me, I say, but one way in which I could pay, I being ever simple and slow of wit.  I, John Cowles, without thinking so far as the swift consequences, must now act as the shield of the girl who stood there trembling, the girl who had confessed to her rival her own bitter sin, but who had lied as to her accomplice in her sin!