“Have I ever been rude to you?” he asked, eagerly.  “Such a thing would be an infinite disgrace to me.”

“Yes,” she said, answering his assertion.

“‘While you,’” he repeated, “you said ’while you’—­What were you going to say about me?”

“While you love Katie with all your heart,” she answered, “as it is right you should do.”  He looked at her, and remembered that for all her courage it might be that he owed her at least the courtesy of all observances of respect and regard before others.  He had committed an unpardonable error that day of the dinner at his father’s, and he felt a confusion, as if the color were coming to his face now as he thought of it.

“You—­mistake,” he stammered.  “I assure you you do.  I think I understand—­I”—­

She looked up at him.  Her face was pale, and there was in it the kind of compassion that one might imagine a spirit to feel for a wayworn mortal.

“You owe me no explanation,” she said.  “Let us believe in the victory of the right, and put this nightmare away from us.  Remember you are speaking only to Katie’s friend.”

He looked at her, and he could not be sure.

“But you must let me speak,” he said, “because I see you mistake.  I don’t want you to think because—­I confess it—­her beauty has a great fascination for me that I can forget myself, that I—­it was like admiring a beautiful living picture.”

She moved nearer, involuntarily.

“Poor fellow!” she said under her breath, “you have been brave; you are brave, very brave.  I’ve seen it.”  Then, after a pause in which she retreated a little and stood considering deeply, she said, “I will tell you something; it would be too much to be spoken of, only that you don’t understand why I did this thing about the business.  Think how I am placed.  I may be standing between my dear friend and the man who was to have been her husband, and separating them forever.  That night when I came home from your father’s I realized it more than ever before; it filled me so that I could not bear the thought of life.  I happened to have something by me, and I—­almost took it.  I should have slipped away from between you two, I was so bent upon doing it,—­only, the warning saved me from such a sin.  It will never be again,” she added as she saw his eyes dilate with questioning horror.  “That temptation has gone.  I have accepted my lot, for it was permitted to come, or even that wicked man could not have brought it.  But now, think, think how I must long to do some little thing, not to atone, that’s impossible, but to make life not quite so hard to you, and to her.  Now, this has come for you.  Take it, I entreat you.  Some day I may be able to help her in some way; I think it will be so.”

He looked into her eyes as she raised them to his.

“But you didn’t mean to—­do all this, if it is done,” he said.  “There’s no need of talking about atoning, as if you were guilty of anything.”