She shut the door and came back to the hearth.

"She despises us all!" she said. "She despises us all!"

He had flung himself into a chair and lay back, clasping his hands behind his head and looking gloomily before him.

"Sometimes I think she does," he said. "But what of that?"

She answered without looking at him.

"To be sure," she said. "What of that?"

After a little she spoke again.

"There is something I have thought of saying to you," she said. "It is this. I am happier here than I ever was before."

"I am very glad," he answered.

"I never thought of being happy," she went on, "or like other women in anything. I—I was different."