“If one is untrue—­once, why be true at all ever?” she said with an aching laugh, through which tears ran, though none dropped from her eyes.  “If one is untrue to one, why not to a thousand?”

Again a mocking laugh burst from her.  “Don’t you see?  One kiss, a wrong?  Why not, then, a thousand kisses!  The wrong came in the moment that the one kiss was given.  It is the one that kills, not the thousand after.”

There came to her mind again—­and now with what sardonic force—­Rudyard’s words that day before they went to Glencader:  “If you had lived a thousand years ago you would have had a thousand lovers.”

“And so it is all understood between you and Rudyard,” she added, mechanically.  “That is what you have arranged for me—­that I go on living as before with Rudyard, while I am not to know from him anything has happened; but to accept what has been arranged for me, and to be repentant and good and live in sackcloth.  It has been arranged, has it, that Rudyard is to believe in me?”

“That has not been arranged.”

“It has been arranged that I am to live with him as before, and that he is to pretend to love me as before, and—­”

“He does love you as before.  He has never changed.  He believed in you, was so pitifully eager to believe in you even when the letter—­”

“Where is the letter?”

He pointed to the fire.

“Who put it in the fire?” she asked.  “You?”

He inclined his head.

“Ah yes, always so clever!  A burst of indignation at his daring to suspect me even for an instant, and with a flourish into the fire, the evidence.  Here is yours—­your letter.  Would you like to put it into the fire also?” she asked, and drew his letter from the folds of her dress.

“But, no, no, no—­” She suddenly sprang to her feet, and her eyes had a look of agonized agitation.  “When I have learned every word by heart, I will burn it myself—­for your sake.”  Her voice grew softer, something less discordant came into it.  “You will never understand.  You could never understand me, or that letter of Adrian Fellowes to me, and that he could dare to write me such a letter.  You could never understand it.  But I understand you.  I understand your letter.  It came while I was—­while I was broken.  It healed me, Ian.  Last night I wanted to kill myself.  Never mind why.  You would not understand.  You are too good to understand.  All night I was in torture, and then this letter of yours—­it was a revelation.  I did not think that a man lived like you, so true, so kind, so mad.  And so I wrote you a letter, ah, a letter from my soul! and then came down to this—­the end of all.  The end of everything—­forever.”

“No, the beginning if you will have it so....  Rudyard loves you . . .”

She gave a cry of agony.  “For God’s sake—­oh, for God’s sake, hush! . . .  You think that now I could . . .”

“Begin again with new purpose.”