“But you don’t know—­”

“I can imagine.  Monsieur de Bienville has already done me all the harm he can.  It’s beyond his power to hurt me any more.”

“But, Diane, you don’t know what you’re saying.  You don’t know what he’s doing.  He’s—­he’s—­I hardly know how to put it—­He’s destroying your reputation.”

She glanced up with a smile, ceasing for an instant to sew.

“You mean, he’s destroying what’s left of it.  Well, he’s welcome!  There was so little of it—­”

“For God’s sake, Diane, don’t say that; it breaks my heart.  You must consider the position that you put me in.  After you’ve rendered me one the greatest services one person can do another, do you think I can sit quietly by while you are being robbed of the dearest thing in life, just because you did it?”

“I should be sorry to think the opinion other people hold of me to be the dearest thing in life; but, even if it were, I’d willingly give it up for—­Dorothea.”

“It isn’t for Dorothea; it’s for me.”

“Well, wouldn’t you let me do it—­for you?  I’m not of much use in the world, but it would make me a little happier to think I could do any one a good turn without being promised a reward.”

“A reward!  Oh, Diane!”

“It’s what you’re offering me, isn’t it?  If it hadn’t been for—­for—­the great service you speak about, you wouldn’t he here, asking me again to be your wife.”

“That’s your way of putting it, but I’ll put it in mine.  If it hadn’t been for the magnitude of the sacrifice you’re willing to make for me, I shouldn’t have dared to hope that you loved me.  When all pretexts and secondary causes have been considered and thrust aside, that’s why I’m here, and for no other reason whatever.  If you love me,” he continued, “why should you hesitate any longer?  If you love me, why seek for reasons to justify the simple prompting of your heart?  What have you and I got to do with other people’s opinions?  When there’s a plain, straightforward course before us, why not go right on and follow it?”

She raised her eyes for one brief glance.

“You forget.”

The words were spoken quietly, but they startled him.

“Yes, Diane; I do forget.  Rather, there’s nothing left for me to remember.  I know what you’d have me recall.  I’ll speak of it this once more, to be silent on the subject forever.  I want you to forgive me.  I want to tell you that I, too, have repented.”

“Repented of what?”

“Of the wrong I’ve done you.  I believe your soul to be as white as all this whiteness around you.”

“Then,” she continued, questioning gently, “you’ve changed your point of view during the last six months?”

“I have.  You charged me then with being willing to come down to your level; now I’m asking you to let me climb up to it.  I see that I was a self-righteous Pharisee, and that the true man is he who can smite his breast and say, God be merciful to me a sinner!”