He pressed forward, raising himself on the first step of the stairs, till his face was on a level with hers.  He grew red and stammered: 

“But, Miss Guion, you’re—­you’re—­in love with him?—­the man you’d be going away with?”

She nodded.  “Yes; but that wouldn’t help me to feel justified with regard to the—­the duty—­I was leaving behind.”

He dropped again to the level of the hall.  “I don’t understand.  Do you mean to say that what I’ve done for Mr. Guion would keep you from getting married?”

“I’m not prepared to say that.  Colonel Ashley is so—­so splendid in the way he takes everything that—­But I’ll say this much,” she began again, “that you’ve made it hard for me to be married.”

“How so?  I thought it would be all the other way.”

“If you’ll put yourself in my place—­or in Colonel Ashley’s place—­you’ll see.  Try to think what it means for two people like us to go away—­and be happy—­and live in a great, fashionable world—­and be people of some importance—­knowing that some one else—­who was nothing to us, as we were nothing to him—­had to deprive himself of practically everything he had in the world to enable us to do it.”

“But if it was a satisfaction to him—­”

“That wouldn’t make any difference to us.  The facts would be the same.”

“Then, as far as I see, I’ve done more harm than good.”

“You’ve helped papa.”

“But I haven’t helped you.”

“As I understand it, you didn’t want to.”

“I didn’t want to—­to do the reverse.”

“Perhaps it wouldn’t be the reverse if you could condescend to let me do something for you.  It would be the fair exchange which is no robbery.  That’s why I suggest that if I’m to have that—­that life over there—­you should profit by its advantages.”

He shook his head violently.  “No, Miss Guion.  Please don’t think of it.  It’s out of the question.  I wish you’d let me say once for all that you owe me nothing.  I shall never accept anything from you—­never!”

“Oh!” It was the protest of one who has been hurt.

“I’ll take that back,” he said, instantly.  “There is something you can do for me and that I should like.  Marry your Englishman, Miss Guion, and do what you said just now—­go away and be happy.  If you want to give me a reward, I’ll take that.”

She surveyed him a minute in astonishment.  “You’re perfectly extraordinary,” she said at last, in a tone of exasperation, “and”—­she threw at him a second later—­“and impossible!”

Before he could reply she went grandly up the stairway, so that he was obliged to follow her.  In the hall above she turned on him again.  Had he not known that he had given her no cause for offence he would have said that her eyes filled with tears.

“Things are very hard as it is,” she said, reproachfully.  “You needn’t go out of your way to make them gratuitously cruel.”