"Do you know what this is?" he asked, holding the packet toward her.
She shook her head wonderingly.
"It's what I owe you." She made a gesture of deprecation. "It's the money you lent me," he went on. "It's a tremendous satisfaction—that at least—to be able to bring it back to you."
"But I don't want it," she stammered, in some agitation.
"Perhaps not. But I want you to have it." He explained to her briefly what he had done in the matter.
"Couldn't you give it to something?" she begged, "to some church or institution?"
"You can, if you like. I mean to give it to you. You see, I'm not returning it with expressions of gratitude, because anything I could say would be so inadequate as to be absurd."
He left his chair and came to her, with the packet in his outstretched hand. She shrank from it, rising, and retreating into the space of the bay-window.
"But I don't want it," she insisted. "I never thought of your returning it. I scarcely thought of the incident at all. It had almost passed from my memory."
"That's natural enough; but it's equally natural that it shouldn't have passed from mine." He came close to her and offered it again. "Do take it."