"Heaven help me, so I have!" replied her hostess. "Do you mean it, Margery?"
"I was never more in earnest," answered the girl, turning suddenly grave again.
So Mrs. Carnby sent the required answer.
All that morning she was more puzzled than ever she had been in the whole course of her life. It was certain that the girl's mood had changed. The doubtful shadow in her eyes had given place to a clear glow of confidence, and her laugh was free from any suggestion of restraint. That in itself was curious. Depression, melancholy, even resentment, were to be expected as a result of the news that Andrew Vane was on the point of entering her life once more. Of late he had shown himself in a more unfavourable light than ever, and yet in her eyes, her smile, her light-hearted animation there was something akin to a suggestion that he had been fully exonerated from suspicion, rather than freshly and more significantly subjected to it. She was emphatically happy—and Mrs. Carnby could not comprehend. The thought, indeed, came to her that the explanation which Andrew had denied her, these three weeks past, had been given to Margery, in some fashion as yet unexplained. But this theory was wholly incompatible with his bearing when he arrived at noon. He looked wretchedly ill, and was prey to a visible embarrassment. He took her hand, but did not meet her eyes, and the credit she was beginning to accord him gave way, once more, to anger. As a result, her greeting was conspicuously cool. After dinner he and Margery played billiards, while Jeremy dozed, with the Temps over his placid face, and Mrs. Carnby did more to ruin a piece of embroidery than she had done to further it in the past six months. Suddenly the good lady retired to her room, with a violent and fortuitous headache. She had relinquished any attempt to fathom the situation: she had frankly thrown up the sponge!
"Shall we take a walk in the garden?" asked Andrew.
When they were alone with the silence and the stars, his hand sought hers.
"Margery!"
"Andy!"
"I've simply come to say good-by, my dear. You were quite right: I'm not worthy of you. I'm going back to the States as soon as I can get away. All I want you to remember is this: I've been careless—reckless—wholly at fault from the beginning to the end—but I've loved you always, my dearest—always—always! I won't go into all the miserable details. Paris has made a fool of me, that's all. I'm not the first idiot to throw away his chance of happiness because of the big city over there, and I'm not the first to pay the penalty I deserve. Once, perhaps, I had the right to demand something at your hands; but now I've no right to ask for anything. I ask for nothing! I've come to beg for your forgiveness, and to say good-by. Will you forgive me, Margery?"