"No," said West. "No."
He pulled himself together, struggling desperately to throw off the curious benumbing inertia that was settling down upon him. "You are doing me an injustice. A most tremendous injustice. You have misunderstood everything from the beginning. I must explain—"
"Don't you think that argument will only make it all so much worse?"
"Nothing could possibly be worse for me than to have you think of me and speak to me in this way."
Obediently she sat down, her face still and sad; and West, pausing a moment to marshal his thoughts into convincing form, launched forth upon his defense.
From the first he felt that he did not make a success of it; was not doing himself justice. Recent events, in the legislature and with reference to Meachy T. Bangor, had greatly weakened his confidence in his arguments. Even to himself he seemed to have been strangely "easy"; his exposition sounded labored and hollow in his own ears. But worse than this was the bottomless despondency into which the girl's brief autobiography had strangely cast him. A vast mysterious depression had closed over him, which entirely robbed him of his usual adroit felicity of speech. He brought his explanation up to the publication of the unhappy article, and there abruptly broke off.
A long silence followed his ending, and at last Sharlee said:—
"I suppose a sudden change of heart in the middle of a fight is always an unhappy thing. It always means a good deal of pain for somebody. Still—sometimes they must come, and when they do, I suppose the only thing to do is to meet them honestly—though, personally, I think I should always trust my heart against my head. But ... if you had only come to us that first morning and frankly explained just why you deserted us—if you had told us all this that you have just told me—"
"That is exactly what I wanted and intended to do," interrupted West. "I kept silent out of regard for you."
"Out of regard for me?"