“What does all this—­”

“Listen, listen!  Let me speak!  It may be my last chance.  I tell you I saw you as I know you must be—­the real woman, not the hard, the condemning judge that you have been to me.  And as I saw you for that one moment, I have remembered you and pictured you in my thoughts; and seeing you in memory I have grown to love that woman I saw, to love her with all my heart and soul.”

Love!  It dawned on her, this man, who had made a sport of her name, was offering her love now!  Love! she sickened at the very thought of it—­the word had been profaned by Philip Slotman’s lips.

“I believe,” she thought, “I believe that there is no such thing as love—­as holy love, as true, good, sweet love!  It is all selfish passion and ugliness!”

“Just now, Mr. Alston”—­her voice was cold and scornful, and it chilled him, as one is chilled by a drenching with cold water—­“just now you said perhaps you lacked humour.  I do not think it is that, I think you have a sense of humour somewhat perverted.  Of course, you are only carrying this—­this joke one step further—­”

“Joan!”

“And as you drove me from Cornbridge Manor, I suppose you will now drive me from this house.  Am I to find peace and refuge nowhere, nowhere?”

“If—­if you could be generous!” he cried.

She flushed with anger.  “You have called me ungenerous before!  Am I always to be called ungenerous by you?”

“Forgive me!” His eyes were filled with pleading.  He did not know himself, did not recognise the old, happy-go-lucky Hugh Alston, who had accepted many a hard knock from Fate with a smile and a jest.

“And so I am to be driven from this home, this refuge—­by you?” she said bitterly.  “Oh, have you no sense of manhood in you?”

“I think I have.  You shall not be driven away.  I, of course, am the one to go.  Through me you left Cornbridge, you shall not have to leave this house.  I promise you, swear to you, that I shall not darken these doors again.  Is that enough?  Does that content you?”

“Then I shall have at least something at last to thank you for,” she said coldly.  And yet, though she spoke coldly, she looked at him and saw something in his face that made her lip tremble.  Yet in no other way did she betray her feelings, and he, like the man he was, was of course blind.

It was strange how long they had been left alone, uninterrupted.  The strangeness of it did not occur to him, yet it did to her.  She turned to the door.

“Joan, wait,” he pleaded—­“wait!  One last word!  One day I shall hope to explain to you, then perhaps you will find it in your heart to forgive.  For the blunder that I made in Slotman’s office, for the further insult, if you look on it as such, I ask you to forgive me now.  It was the act of a senseless fool, a mad fool, who had done wrong and tried to do right, and through his folly made matters worse.  To-night perhaps I have sinned more than ever before in telling you that I love you.  But if that is a sin and past all forgiveness, I glory in it.  I take not one word of it back.  I shall trouble you no more, and so”—­he paused—­“so I say good-bye.”