"Oh, yes," she said graciously, and then it seemed that nothing could ever disturb him again. She enjoyed his boyish glee; she walked by his side listening airily to it.
"Had there been a fire in the room that day I should have burned the thing," she said without emotion.
"It would have been no more than my deserts," Tommy replied cheerfully.
"I did burn it three months afterwards," said she, calmly.
He stopped, but she walked on. He sprang after her. "You don't mean that, Alice!"
"I do mean it."
With a gesture fierce and yet imploring, he compelled her to stop. "Before God, is this true?" he cried.
"Yes," she said, "it is true"; and, indeed, it was the truth about his manuscript at last.
"But you had a copy of it made first. Say you had!"
"I had not."