as if to contain and repress tumult. But her eyes were smiling,
and yet it was a smile he could not read; it was compassionate,
wistful, and yet tinged, it seemed to him, with mockery.

"I suppose," he said, "it would be expected of me in the
circumstances to seek words in which to thank you for what you have
done. But I have no such words. I am not grateful. How could I be
grateful? You have destroyed the thing that I most valued in this
world."

"What have I destroyed?" she asked him.

"Your own good name; the respect that was your due from all men."

"Yet if I retain your own?"

"What is that worth?" he asked almost resentfully.

"Perhaps more than all the rest." She took a step forward and set
her hand upon his arm. There was no mistaking now her smile. It
was all tenderness, and her eyes were shining. "Ned, there is only
one thing to be done."

He looked down at her who was only a little less tall than himself,
and the colour faded from his own face now.

"You haven't understood me after all," he said. "I was afraid you
would not. I have no clear gift of words, and if I had, I am trying
to say something that would overtax any gift."