"I am glad," she put in, "that you acknowledge that I did hold you at arm's length, and that you were not blind to it."
"Oh," he answered, "I wasn't blind to it, no more than you were blind to the other; and from first to last it's been my comfort to remember that you weren't blind to the other—that you knew it as well as I did. I've held to that."
He came close to her.
"When I give up what I'd worked twenty year to get, what did I give it up for? For you. When I took Ffrench in partner, what did I run the risk for? For you. What was to pay me? You."
His close presence in the shadow was so intolerable to her that she could have cried out, but she did not.
"You made a poor bargain," she remarked.
"Aye, a poor bargain; but you were one in it. You bore it in your mind, and you've bore it there from then till now, and I've got a hold on you through it that's worth summat to me, if I never came nigh nor touched you. You knew it, and you let it be. No other chap can pay more for you than Jem Haworth's paid. I've got that to think of."
She made a gesture with her hand.
"I—I—hush!" she cried. "I will not hear it!"