"Nancy, is this thing true?"
Nancy nodded. She said in a lifeless voice: "Oh yes, it's true. I was trying to tell you, but—" And then she broke into a cry: "Glenn, you don't understand! Glenn, listen, please listen! I did love you, I do love you, Glenn! You—you don't know—you don't understand—"
The boy staggered. He was an honorable, clean-souled boy, heir to old heritages of pride, and faith, and chivalry. A dull, shamed red crept from cheek to brow, replacing his pallor. His gesture, as he turned away from her, made her feel as if she had been struck across the face. She winced. She saw herself judged and condemned.
"Mr. Champneys," stammered Glenn, painfully, "surely you know I didn't understand—don't you? I—we—fell in love, sir. We'd meant to wait—that's why I didn't come to you at once—but I—that is, I was very much in love with her, and I was going to make a clean breast of it and ask you what we'd better do. And you're not to think I'm—dishonorable—" he choked over the word.
Knowing the boy's breed, Champneys laid a not unkindly hand on his shoulder.
"I see how it was," he said. "And—I guess you're punished enough, without any reproaches from me."
Glenn turned to Nancy. "Why did you do it?" he cried. "I loved you, I trusted you. Nancy, why did you do such a thing—to me?"
She twisted her fingers. Well, this was the end. She was to be thrust out of the new brightness, back into the drab dreariness, the emptiness that was her fate. She lifted tragic eyes.
"I never expected you to love me. But when you did—I just had to let you! Nobody else cared—ever. And I loved you for loving me—I couldn't help it, Glenn; I couldn't help it!" Her voice broke. She stood there, twisting her fingers.
An old, wise, kind woman, or an old priest who had seen and forgiven much, or men who knew and pitied youth, would have understood. Neither of the men to whom she spoke realized the significance of that childishly pitiful confession. Champneys felt that she had shamed his name, belittled the sacred Family which was his fetish; Glenn thought she had made a fool of him for her own amusement. Never again would he trust a woman, he told himself. And in his pain and shame, his smarting sense of having been duped, his hideous revulsion of feeling, he spoke out brutally. Nancy was left in no doubt as to the estimation in which he now held her. And she understood that it was his pride, even more than his love, that suffered.