'Do you deny that you refused to see me, and that when I persisted you vanished?'
'I don't deny any of those things.'
'Why'—he stood up straight again, and his shoulders grew more square with justification—'why I had no trace of you for years.'
'I suppose not.'
'Very well, then.' He walked away. 'What could I do?'
'Nothing. It was too late to do anything.'
'It wasn't too late! You knew, since you "read the papers," that my father died that same year. There was no longer any barrier between us.'
'Oh, yes, there was a barrier.'
'Of your own making, then.'
'I had my guilty share in it, but the barrier'—her voice trembled on the word—'the barrier was your invention.'