"You have it by law, not by accident," he answered curtly. He was growing angry. "Why do you come here and unsettle me?" he demanded. "I wasn't thinking of it. And then you come here!"
She was apologetic no longer. She faced him boldly.
"You ought to think of it," she insisted. "And, yes, I've come here because it was right for me to come, because I couldn't respect myself unless I came. I want you to take back Blent."
"What infernal nonsense!" he exclaimed. "You know it's impossible."
"No," she said; she was calm but her breath came quick. "There's one way in which it's possible."
In an instant he understood her; there was no need of more words. She knew herself to be understood as she looked at him; and for a while she looked steadily. But his gaze too was long, and it became very searching, so that presently, in spite of her efforts, she felt herself flushing red, and her eyes fell. The room had become uncomfortably quiet too. At last he spoke.
"I suppose you remember what I told you about Janie Iver," he said, "and that's how you came to think I might do this. You must see that that was different. I gave as much as I got there. She was rich, I was——" He smiled sourly. "I was Tristram of Blent. You are Tristram of Blent, I am——" He shrugged his shoulders.
He made no reference to the personal side of the case. She was not hurt, she was enormously relieved.
"I'm not inclined to be a pensioner on my wife," he said.
She opened her lips to speak; she was within an ace of telling him that, if this and that went well, he would have so assured and recognized a position that none could throw stones at him. Her words died away in face of the peremptory finality of his words and the