“It’s too bad of Eve!  It’s cruel!  I can never like her as I did before.”

“Oh, she’s very interesting.  She gives one such a lot to talk about.”

“I don’t like her, and I shall tell her so before I leave Birmingham.  What right has she to make people so miserable?”

“Only one, after all.”

“Do you mean that you will let her marry Mr. Narramore?” Patty asked with interest.

“We shall have to talk about that.”

“If I were you I should never see her again!”

“The probability is that we shall see each other many a time.”

“Then you haven’t much courage, Mr. Hilliard!” exclaimed the girl, with a flush on her cheeks.

“More than you think, perhaps,” he answered between his teeth.

“Men are very strange,” Patty commented in a low voice of scorn, mitigated by timidity.

“Yes, we play queer pranks when a woman has made a slave of us.  I suppose you think I should have too much pride to care any more for her.  The truth is that for years to come I shall tremble all through whenever she is near me.  Such love as I have felt for Eve won’t be trampled out like a spark.  It’s the best and the worst part of my life.  No woman can ever be to me what Eve is.”

Abashed by the grave force of this utterance, Patty shrank back into the chair, and held her peace.

“You will very soon know what conies of it all,” Hilliard continued with a sudden change of voice.  “It has to be decided pretty quickly, one way or another.”

“May I tell Eve what you have said to me?” the girl asked with diffidence.

“Yes, anything that I have said.”

Patty lingered a little, then, as her companion said no more, she rose.

“I must say good-bye, Mr. Hilliard.”

“I am afraid your holiday hasn’t been as pleasant as you expected.”

“Oh, I have enjoyed myself very much.  And I hope”—­her voice wavered—­“I do hope it’ll be all right.  I’m sure you’ll do what seems best.”

“I shall do what I find myself obliged to, Patty.  Good-bye.  I won’t offer to go with you, for I should be poor company.”

He conducted her to the foot of the stairs, again shook hands with her, put all his goodwill into a smile, and watched her trip away with a step not so light as usual.  Then he returned to Eve’s letter.  It gave him a detailed account of her relations with Narramore.  “I went to him because I couldn’t bear to live idle any longer; I had no other thought in my mind.  If he had been the means of my finding work, I should have confessed it to you at once.  But I was tempted into answering his letters. . . .  I knew I was behaving wrongly; I can’t defend myself. . . .  I have never concealed my faults from you —­the greatest of them is my fear of poverty.  I believe it is this that has prevented me from returning your love as I wished to do.  For a long time I have been playing a deceitful part, and the strange thing is that I knew my exposure might come at any moment.  I seem to have been led on by a sort of despair.  Now I am tired of it; whether you were prepared for this or not, I must tell you. . . .  I don’t ask you to release me.  I have been wronging you and acting against my conscience, and if you can forgive me I will try to make up for the ill I have done. . . .”