"Oh, no, it isn't!" she said with conviction.
She stood before him in the twilight, her hands clasped tightly together.
"Do you remember a girl called Mary Fielding?" she said, with a piteous effort to control her voice. "She used to be the friend of—of—your fiancée, Lady Maud Belville, long ago, before you had your accident."
He nodded gravely.
"I remember her," he said.
"I don't suppose you ever noticed her much," the girl continued shakily. "She was uninteresting, and always in the background."
"I should know her anywhere," said Durant with confidence.
"No, no," she protested. "I'm sure you wouldn't. You—you never gave her a second thought, though she—was foolish enough—idiotic enough—to—to care whether you did or not."
"Was she?" he said softly. "Was she? And was that why she came to live among the sand-dunes and cut off her hair and wore print dresses—and—and made life taste sweet to me again?"
"Ah! You know now!" she said, with a sound that was like laughter through tears.