"I owe you everything," he said with the cold ungraciousness of a grudging confession. "If you hadn't come, I'd have had a hell in my conscience tomorrow. I'd have been a murderer. I even tried to force you to admit that it was for me, myself, that you cared enough to do it. I'm ashamed of that.... It won't happen again." He paused and his voice was bitterly edged when he went on. "I begged for the chance to explain things—when there was still time. You refused to hear me. Now I wouldn't explain if you begged me to—That's over, but I acknowledge the debt I owe you—for tonight. It's a heavier debt than any man can stand in and keep his self-respect."
Morgan and Anne had been to the theatre, and when they came back to the house the lawyer had drawn from his pocket a small package, and while Anne opened it he looked on. It was an engagement ring, and quite worthy of his connoisseur's selection. But when he put out his hand to take hers, she drew it back and spoke impulsively:
"Before you put that on—Morgan—there's something I must tell you."
He smiled his acquiescence and waited with the emerald set emblem in his fingers, while, in the manner of one who has determined upon a recital that does not flow easily, she began. She filled in for him the events of the two days of her recent and somewhat mysterious absence, and its cause.
Morgan had learned to accept with a certain philosophy the impulse-governed life of the girl who had promised to marry him. If Anne had been less uniquely her own unstereotyped self, she would not have been the fascinating person who had captured his fastidious admiration.
While she talked, his face grew sober, but he refrained from any interruption, and at last she looked up and said simply: "I thought it was best to tell you all about it now. I went—and that's where I was—and for hours of that ghastly night—there was no one else there—but just the two of us."
"I see," said Morgan slowly. She waited for him to supplement the two words, and when he failed to do so, she went on:
"I thought maybe that—knowing about that—you might not want to—" She broke off, and her eyes falling on the ring, finished the sentence.
Morgan shook his head. His usual self-possession was a shade shaken, but he responded definitely, "I do."