“I have been so miserable,” she murmured.  “My conscience has troubled me terribly.  Oh, I can’t tell you how I have suffered.  All the evening I thought you would come.  I waited for you; I went out on the terrace a hundred times, watching for the lights of your car; but you didn’t come, you didn’t come, Jerry, and I knew how terribly I had offended you.”

I couldn’t see her but I’m sure she was wringing her pretty white hands.  Jerry must have been deeply moved for his voice was shaky.

“It didn’t matter about me, but a visitor, a guest at Horsham Manor, Marcia, a friend—!”

“A friend, yes.  Oh, I’ve been so unhappy about it all—­so miserably wretched.”

Her voice broke and she seemed upon the point of tears.

“Why did you, Marcia?  Why did you?” he repeated.

“I—­I—­” She appeared to break down and weep and Jerry’s voice took on a tone of distress.

“Don’t, Marcia, please!”

“I—­I’m trying not to—­but—­” and she wept anew.

“Come,” said Jerry’s voice.  “Sit here a moment.  I’m sure it can all be explained.  It makes me very unhappy to see you so miserable.”

They moved nearer and she sat upon the very rock beneath which I lay among the mouldy leaves; so near that I could have reached out and touched the girl’s silken ankle with my fingers.  Jerry, I think, still stood.

“I don’t want to—­to make you unhappy,” she said in a moment.  “And it was all my fault, but I just couldn’t—­couldn’t stand it, Jerry.”

“Stand what?”

A pause and then in muffled tones.

“Don’t you know?  Don’t you really understand?”

“No.  I—­”

“I was mad,” she whispered, “mad with jealousy of Una.  She was your first love, your first—­”

“Marcia!  You mustn’t.  It’s absurd.”

“No, no,” she protested.  “I know.  Ever since I first learned that she had—­had been in here with you, I—­I haven’t been able to get her out of mind—­I may have appeared to, but I’m not one who forgets things easily; and to meet her at the cabin, the very place where I thought I should—­should have you all to myself—­it was too much.  Jerry.  I couldn’t stand it.  Something—­something in me rebelled.  I grew cold all over and hard against all the world, even you.”

“But this was foolish of you.  Una, a friend.  Surely there was no harm in my seeing her here?”

“It was foolish,” there was a slight change in the intonation of her voice here, “but I know the world so much better than you, Jerry.  Girls are so designing, so—­so untrustworthy.”

“You don’t know Una if you say that,” said Jerry loyally.

“Perhaps I don’t.  I don’t wish to think badly of anyone you call a friend but Una is so—­er—­so independent—­so accustomed to moving with queer people—­” She paused a moment again to give her insinuation weight.  “I don’t know,” she sighed.  “I thought all sorts of horrible things about you.”