"Would you prefer not to speak to me, Lady Blakeney?" he said humbly.

She could scarcely believe her ears, or trust her eyes. It seemed
impossible that a man could have so changed in a few months. He even
looked shorter than last year, more shrunken within himself. His hair,
which he wore free from powder, was perceptibly tinged with grey.

"Shall I withdraw?" he added after a pause, seeing that Marguerite made
no movement to return his salutation.

"It would be best, perhaps," she replied coldly. "You and I, Monsieur
Chauvelin, have so little to say to one another."

"Very little indeed," he rejoined quietly; "the triumphant and happy have
ever very little to say to the humiliated and the defeated. But I had hoped
that Lady Blakeney in the midst of her victory would have spared one
thought of pity and one of pardon."

"I did not know that you had need of either from me, Monsieur."

"Pity perhaps not, but forgiveness certainly."

"You have that, if you so desire it."

"Since I failed, you might try to forget."

"That is beyond my power. But believe me, I have ceased to think of the
infinite wrong which you tried to do to me."