“Do you mean Bessie Pollard?” he asked.  His voice was hard; it was characteristic of him that, in the supreme test, his sense of humour failed him.  He met grave issues with a gravity that upheld them.

She bowed her head.  At the same time she flung out a despairing hand for hope, but he did not notice it.  She was softening to him—­if she had ever steeled herself against him—­and a single summons to her faith would have vanquished the feeble resistance.  But he did not make it—­the inflexible front which she had seen turned to others she now saw presented to herself.  He looked at her with an austere tightening of the mouth and held off.

“And they have told you that I ruined her,” he said, “and you believe them.”

“No—­no,” she cried; “not that!”

His eyes were on her, but there was no yielding in them.  The arrogant pride of a strong man, plainly born, was face to face with her appeal.  His features were set with the rigidity of stone.

“Who has told you this?” he demanded.

“Oh, it is not true—­it is not true,” she answered; “but
Bernard—­Bernard believed it—­and he is your friend.”

Then his smouldering rage burst forth, and his face grew black.  It was as if an incarnate devil had leaped into his eyes.  He took a step forward.

“Then may God damn him,” he said, “for he is the man!”

She fell from him as if he had struck her.  Her spirit flashed out as his had done.  The anger of her race shot forth.

“Oh, stop! stop!  How dare you!” she cried; “for he tried to shield you—­he tried to shield you—­he would shield you if he could.”

But he crossed to where she stood and caught her outstretched hands in a grasp that hurt her.  She winced, and his hold grew gentle; but his voice was brutal in its passion.

“Be silent,” he said, “and listen to me.  They have lied to you, and you have believed them—­you I shall never forgive—­you are nothing to me—­nothing.  As for him—­may God, in his mercy, damn him!”

He let her hands drop and went from her into the silence of the open road.

When the thud of his footsteps was muffled by the distance Eugenia turned and went back through the cedar avenue.  She walked heavily, and there was a bruised sensation in her limbs as if she had hurt herself upon stones.  A massive fatigue oppressed her, and she stumbled once or twice over the rocks in the road.  Her happiness was dead, this she told herself; telling herself, also, that it had not perished by anger or by disbelief.  The slayer loomed intangible and yet inevitable—­the shade that had arisen from the gigantic gulf between separate classes which they had sought, in ignorance, to abridge.  The pride of Nicholas was not individual, but typical—­the pride of caste, and it was against this that she had sinned—­not in distrusting his honour, but in offending it.  It was in the clash of class, after all, that their