Alton's hand tightened upon the balustrade, and then turning slowly he paced along the verandah, while Alice Deringham choked back a sob as she noticed that now his steps were uneven. She had accomplished the task that was laid upon her, and it only remained for her to keep silence and hide her suffering. In another moment he would descend the verandah stairway and she would never see him again. Alton, however, went past the stairway as though he did not see it, moving clumsily, with a limp that pained the girl more than his face had done. Then he turned and she felt her heart beat faster, for there was a change in him when he came back again. He stopped and stood still close by her.
"You must try to forgive me—but it hurt," he said.
Alice Deringham turned her face away from him, and for a moment wonder almost drove all other emotion out of her.
"I—I don't understand. It was I who did that horrible thing."
"Then," said Alton very gravely, "you were driven to it. My dear, you could of your own will do no wrong."
Again his great faith in her brought the blood to the white face of the girl, and her humiliation almost overwhelmed her. Still, she was determined that he should know all, and she struck again.
"No," she said, with a cold incisiveness, though her voice was faint and strained. "I did it because I hated you—and longed for any means of punishing you."
Alton seemed to shiver, but his eyes were fixed on her steadily, and next moment he had laid his hand upon her shoulder and forced her to look up at him.
"Then we will forget it together," he said. "There was a mistake somewhere—for I do not think you could have hated me."
Alice Deringham made a last struggle; it was a very bitter one, for she realized the all-sufficiency of the love that would believe no evil. "It is impossible, and it will always be," she said. "Will you not see what I am, and how very different that is from what you think of me?"