"Mrs. Falchion," I said, finding it impossible to understand why she had so suddenly determined to go away (for I did not know all the truth until afterwards—some of it long afterwards), "it is more than I dared to hope for, though less, I know, than you have heart to do if you willed so. I know that you hold some power over my friend."
"Do not think," she said, "that you have had the least influence. What you might think, or may have intended to do, has not moved me in the least. I have had wrongs that you do not know. I have changed—that is all. I admit I intended to do Galt Roscoe harm.
"I thought he deserved it. That is over. After to-night, it is not probable that we shall meet again. I hope that we shall not; as, doubtless, is your own mind."
She kept looking at me with that new deep look which I had seen when she first entered the room.
I was moved, and I saw that just at the last she had spoken under considerable strain. "Mrs. Falchion," said I, "I have THOUGHT harder things of you than I ever SAID to any one. Pray believe that, and believe, also, that I never tried to injure you. For the rest, I can make no complaint. You do not like me. I liked you once, and do now, when you do not depreciate yourself of purpose. . . . Pardon me, but I say this very humbly too. . . . I suppose I always shall like you, in spite of myself. You are one of the most gifted and fascinating women that I ever met. I have been anxious for my friend. I was concerned to make peace between you and your husband—"
"The man who WAS my husband," she interrupted musingly.
"Your husband—whom you so cruelly treated. But I confess I have found it impossible to withhold admiration of you."
For a long time she did not reply, but she never took her eyes off my face, as she leaned slightly forward. Then at last she spoke more gently than I had ever heard her, and a glow came upon her face.
"I am only human. You have me at advantage. What woman could reply unkindly to a speech like that? I admit I thought you held me utterly bad and heartless, and it made me bitter. . . . I had no heart—once. I had only a wrong, an injury, which was in my mind; not mine, but another's, and yet mine. Then strange things occurred. . . . At last I relented. I saw that I had better go. Yesterday I saw that; and I am going—that is all. . . . I wished to keep the edge of my intercourse with you sharp and uncompanionable to the end; but you have forced me at my weakest point. . . ." Here she smiled somewhat painfully. . . . "Believe me, that is the way to turn a woman's weapon upon herself. You have learned much since we first met. . . . Here is my hand in friendliness, if you care to take it; and in good-bye, should we not meet again more formally before I go."
"I wish now that your husband, Boyd Madras, were here," I said.