“I was left alone,” she repeated, quietly, “and I have been alone ever since.  You don’t know much about women, Lawrence.  You never did!  Try and realize, though, what that must mean to a woman like myself, not strong, not clever, with very few resources—­just a woman.  I cared for my husband, I suppose, in an average sort of way.  At any rate he loved me.  Then—­there was you.  Oh, you never made love to me, of course.  You were not the sort of man to make love to another man’s wife.  But you used to show that you liked to be with me, Lawrence.  Your voice and your eyes and your whole manner used to tell me that.  Then there came—­that hideous day!  I lost you both.  What have I had since, Lawrence?”

“Very little, I am afraid, worth having.”

“’Very little—­worth having’!” She flung the words from her with passionate scorn.  “I had your alms, your cold, hurried visits, when you seemed to shiver if our fingers touched.  It would have seemed to you, I suppose, a terrible sin to have touched the lips of the woman whom you had helped to rob of her husband, to have spoken kindly to her, to have given her at least a little affection to warm her heart.  Poor me!  What a hell you made of my days, with your selfish model life, your panderings to conscience.  I didn’t want much, you know, Lawrence,” she said, with a sudden choking in her voice.  “I would never have robbed you of your peace of mind.  All I wanted was kindness.  And I think, Lawrence, that it was a debt, but you never paid it.”

Mannering had a moment of self-revelation, a terrible, lurid moment.  Every word that she had said was true.

“You have never spoken to me like this before,” he reminded her, desperately.  “I never knew that you cared.”

“Don’t lie!” she answered, calmly.  “You turned your head away that you might not see.  In your heart you knew very well.  What else, do you think, made me, a very ordinary, nervous sort of woman, get you out of the house that day, tell my story, the story that shielded you, without faltering, put even the words into your own mouth?  It was because I was fool enough to care!  And oh, my God, how you have tortured me since!  You would sit there, coldly censorious, and reason with me about my friends, my manner of life.  I knew what you thought.  You didn’t hide it very well.  Lawrence, I wonder I didn’t kill you!”

“I wish that you had,” he said, bitterly.

She nodded.

“Oh, I know how you are feeling just now,” she said.  “Truth strikes home, you know, and it hurts just a little, doesn’t it?  In a few days your admirable common sense will prevail.  You will say to yourself:  ’She was that sort of woman, she had that sort of disposition, she was bound to go to the dogs, anyway!’ So you are going to marry the Duchess of Lenchester, Lawrence!”

He stood up.

“Blanche,” he said, “that was all a mistake.  I didn’t understand.  Let us forget that day altogether.  Marry me now, and I will try to make up for these past years.”