"No, I did not change. Is it possible you do not understand? Or did you cease to be a southerner when you became"—
"When I became a villain?" He smiled ironically. "Excuse me. Go on, please."
"I was a girl, a happy girl. You killed me. I did not change. Death is different. * * * But why have you come to speak of this to me? It was ages ago. Resurrections are a mistake, believe me." She was composed and deliberate now. Her nerve had all come back. There had been one swift wave of the feeling that once flooded her girl's heart. It had passed and left her with the remembrance of her wrongs and the thought of unhappy years—through all which she had smiled, at what cost, before the world! Come what would, he should never know that, even now, the man he once was remained as the memory of a beautiful dead thing—not this man come to her like a ghost.
"I always believed you," he answered quietly, "and I see no reason to change."
"In that case we need say no more," she said, opening her red parasol and stepping slightly forward into the sunshine as if to go.
There ran into his face a sudden flush. She was harder, more cruel, than he had thought were possible to any woman. "Wait," he said angrily, and put out his hand as if to stop her. "By heaven, you shall!"
"You are sudden and fierce," she rejoined coldly. "What do you wish me to say? What I did not finish—that southerners love altogether or—hate altogether?"
His face became like stone. At last, scarce above a whisper, he said: "Am I to understand that you hate me, that nothing can wipe it out—no repentance and no remorse? You never gave me a chance for a word of explanation or excuse. You refused to see me. You returned my letter unopened. But had you asked her—the woman—the whole truth"—
"If it could make any difference, I will ask her to-morrow."
He did not understand. He thought she was speaking ironically.