“And did he not contradict it?”

“No.  He said it was true.  He has lied to me over and over again; but I saw he was speaking the truth for once.”

There was a long silence.

“I don’t know how other people regard those things,” said Rachel at last, less harshly—­she was gradually recovering herself—­“but I know to me it was much worse that he could deceive me than that he should have been Lady Newhaven’s lover.  I did feel that dreadfully.  I had to choke down my jealousy when he kissed me.  He had kissed her first.  He had made that side of his love common and profane; but the other side remained.  I clung to that.  I believed he really loved me, and that supported me and enabled me to forgive him, though men don’t know what that forgiveness costs us.  Only the walls of our rooms know that.  But it seems to me much worse to have failed me on that other side as well—­to have deceived me—­to have told me a lie—­just when—­just when we were talking intimately.”

“It was infinitely worse,” said the Bishop.

“And it was the action of a coward to draw lots in the first instance if he did not mean to abide by the drawing, and the action of a traitor, once they were drawn, not to abide by them.  But yet, if he had told me—­if he had only told me the whole truth—­I loved him so entirely that I would have forgiven—­even that.  But whenever I alluded to it, he lied.”

“He was afraid of losing you.”

“He has lost me by his deceit.  He would not have lost me if he had told me the truth.  I think—­I know—­that I could have got over anything, forgiven anything, even his cowardice, if he had only admitted it and been straightforward with me.  A little plain dealing was all I asked, but—­I did not get it.”

The Bishop looked sadly at her.  Straightforwardness is so seldom the first requirement a woman makes of the man she loves.  Women, as a rule, regard men and their conduct only from the point of view of their relation to women—­as sons, as husbands, as fathers.  Yet Rachel, it seemed, could forgive Hugh’s sin against her as a woman, but not his further sin against her as a friend.

“Yet it seems he did speak the truth at last,” he said.

“Yes.”

“And after he had destroyed the letter, which was the only proof against him.”

“Yes.”

Another silence.

“I am glad you have thrown him over,” said the Bishop, slowly, “for you never loved him.”

“I deceived myself in that case,” said Rachel, bitterly.  “My only fear was that I loved him too much.”

The Bishop’s face had become fixed and stern.

“Listen to me, Rachel,” he said.  “You fell desperately in love with an inferior man.  He is charming, refined, well-bred, and with a picturesque mind, but that is all.  He is inferior.  He is by nature shallow and hard (the two generally go together), without moral backbone, the kind of man who never faces a difficulty, who always flinches when it comes to the point, the stuff out of which liars and cowards are made.  His one redeeming quality is his love for you.  I have seen men in love before.  I have never seen a man care more for a woman than he cares for you.  His love for you has taken entire possession of him, and by it he will sink or swim.”