He took her hand, but with a curious doggedness he kept his eyes averted. "I guess we're quits," he said. "You don't owe me anything. I took my payment for all I ever gave you."
There was no bitterness in his voice, no emotion of any sort. The clasp of his fingers was no more than kind. His mouth looked stubborn.
But a strange sort of stubbornness seemed to have entered into Maud also. She kept her hand in his.
"I take--another view," she said. "I don't think any man--has ever done--more for a woman--than you have done--for me." Haltingly the words came, but she spoke them bravely. "It's a big, big debt, Jake--immeasurably big,--a personal debt that can never be repaid. I feel--contemptible--whenever I think of it." Her voice shook.
Jake's fingers closed upon hers with a quiet strength. "You've no call to feel like that," he said.
Her hand clung to his suddenly, desperately. "You--believe in me, Jake?" she whispered.
His face did not vary. "I guess I've proved that," he said very steadily.
She uttered a sharp, catching sigh. "Yes--yes! That is another debt. But till--till that night you came to me at Uncle Edward's--I was never--quite--sure."
"Why weren't you sure?" He put the question abruptly, with an insistence that demanded an instant reply. But still he did not look at her. His eyes gazed ever straight into the fire.
Tremulously she answered him. "I met Charlie--Lord Saltash--the morning after--down at 'The Anchor.' He said--he said--you wouldn't be--such a fool. That was why I went away."