"What am I to say to you," she said, "now that I know all that you have done for me while I—while I—Why should you have cared to protect me? I was not kind to you—I was not careful of your feelings"—
"No," he answered. "You—were not."
"I used to think that you despised me," she went on, "once I told you so. I even tried to give you the reason. I showed my worst self to you; I was unjust and bitter; I hurt you many a time."
He seemed to labor for his words, and yet he labored rather to control and check than to utter them.
"I am going away," he said. "When I made the arrangement with Richard, of which you know, I meant to go away. I gathered, from what your father said, that you mean to render useless my poor effort to be of use to you."
"I cannot "—she began, but she could go no farther.
"When I leave you—as I must," he said, "let me at least carry away with me the memory that you were generous to me at the last."
"At the last," she repeated after him, "the last!"
She uttered a strange, little inarticulate cry. He saw her lift up one of her arms, look blindly at the bracelet on her wrist, drop it at her side, and then stand looking up at him.
There was a moment of dead silence.