her, and in those days she would have made him suffer if he had spoken
to her then as he had lately--but he would not have spoken that way
then. And now she wondered why she was not angry instead of being hurt.
And she wondered why she did not like him less. Somehow, it seemed
quite fair that she should be the one to suffer now, and she was glad to
take her share--she had caused him and others so much pain.

"_He_"--not even now did she mention his name--"wrote to me again, not
long ago, asking to see me again. It was impossible. And it was the
thought of you that made me know how impossible it was--_you_." The girl
laughed, almost hardly, but she was thinking of herself when she
did--not of him.

The time and circumstance that make woman the thing apart in a man's
life must come sooner or later to all women, and women must yield; she
knew that, but she had never thought they could come to her--but they
had come, and she, too, must give way.

"It is all very strange," she said, as though she were talking to
herself, and she rose and walked into the warm, fragrant night, and down
the path to the stiles, Crittenden silently following. The night was
breathless and the moonlit woods had the still beauty of a dream; and
Judith went on speaking of herself as she had never done--of the man
whose name she had never mentioned, and whose name Crittenden had never
asked. Until that night, he had not known even whether the man were
still alive or dead. She had thought that was love--until lately she
had never questioned but that when that was gone from her heart, all was
gone that would ever be possible for her to know. That was why she had
told Crittenden to conquer his love for her. And now she was beginning
to doubt and to wonder--ever since she came back and heard him at the