The clerk had a moment of bitterness.  “If she’d known it was you, she wouldn’t have given them back.”

“That’s to be seen.  I shall tell her, now.  I never meant her to know, but she must, because she’s doing you wrong in her ignorance.”

Gregory was silent, and Fane was trying to measure the extent of his own suffering, and to get the whole bearing of the incident in his mind.  In the end his attempt was a failure.  He asked Gregory, “And do you think you’ve done just right by me?”

“I’ve done right by nobody,” said Gregory, “not even by myself; and I can see that it was my own pleasure I had in mind.  I must tell her the truth, and then I must leave this place.”

“I suppose you want I should keep it quiet,” said Fane.

“I don’t ask anything of you.”

“And she wouldn’t,” said Fane, after reflection.  “But I know she’d be glad of it, and I sha’n’t say anything.  Of course, she never can care for me; and—­there’s my hand with my word, if you want it.”  Gregory silently took the hand stretched toward him and Fane added:  “All I’ll ask is that you’ll tell her I wouldn’t have presumed to send her the shoes.  She wouldn’t be mad at you for it.”

Gregory took the box, and after some efforts to speak, he went away.  It was an old trouble, an old error, an old folly; he had yielded to impulse at every step, and at every step he had sinned against another or against himself.  What pain he had now given the simple soul of Fane; what pain he had given that poor child who had so mistaken and punished the simple soul!  With Fane it was over now, but with Clementina the worst was perhaps to come yet.  He could not hope to see the girl before morning, and then, what should he say to her?  At sight of a lamp burning in Mrs. Atwell’s room, which was on a level with the veranda where he was walking, it came to him that first of all he ought to go to her, and confess the whole affair; if her husband were with her, he ought to confess before him; they were there in the place of the child’s father and mother, and it was due to them.  As he pressed rapidly toward the light he framed in his thought the things he should say, and he did not notice, as he turned to enter the private hallway leading to Mrs. Atwell’s apartment, a figure at the door.  It shrank back from his contact, and he recognized Clementina.  His purpose instantly changed, and he said, “Is that you, Miss Claxon?  I want to speak with you.  Will you come a moment where I can?”

“I—­I don’t know as I’d betta,” she faltered.  But she saw the box under his arm, and she thought that he wished to speak to her about that, and she wanted to hear what he would say.  She had been waiting at the door there, because she could not bear to go to her room without having something more happen.

“You needn’t be afraid.  I shall not keep you.  Come with me a moment.  There is something I must tell you at once.  You have made a mistake.  And it is my fault.  Come!”