"Now I would!"

"You promised Captain Gambier?"

"No: those poor people."

"You are sorry that you went?"

No: she was happy.

"You have lost your harp by it," said Wilfrid.

"What do you think of me for not guessing--not knowing who sent it?" she
returned. "I feel guilty of something all those days that I touched it,
not thinking of you. Wicked, filthy little creature that I was! I
despise ungrateful girls."

"I detest anything that has to do with gratitude," Wilfrid appended,
"pray give me none. Why did you go away with Captain Gambier?"

"I was very fond of him," she replied unhesitatingly, but speaking as it
were with numbed lips. "I wanted to tell him, to thank him and hold his
hand. I told him of my promise. He spoke to me a moment in the garden,
you know. He said he was leaving to go to London early, and would wait
for me in the carriage: then we might talk. He did not wish to talk to
me in the garden."

"And you went with him in the carriage, and told him you were so
grateful?"