Crying without stint, Miriam went blindly to the window.
"I wish I hadn't come—!"
"You mustn't be unhappy. I'm not. It isn't very polite to George—or me."
"But when—when you think of that night—Oh! You must be miserable."
"Then you should be."
"I?"
"It was your doing. You tormented him. You played with him. You liked to draw him on and push him back. You turned a man into a—into what we saw that night. George isn't the only man who can be changed into a beast when—when he meets Circe! With me—" Her voice broke with her quickened breathing. Her indignation was no longer for her own maimed life: it was for George, who had been used lightly as a plaything, broken, and given to her for mending.
For a long time Miriam cried, and did not speak, and when she turned to ask a question Helen had almost forgotten her; for all her pity had gone out to George and beautified him and made him dear.
"Tell me one thing," Miriam said earnestly. "It hadn't anything to do with me?"
"What?"