They faced each other with level eyes.

And Sam's shifted.

He never had real nerve, she realized; they didn't--that kind. How had
she managed to love him so long?

Late that night he knocked at her door with a formal proposition:
Would that do?--dumbly. She changed a point or two: _That_ would
do, and signified good night. Sam, looking at her face, turned away
from it, hesitated, turned back, broke. Fear increased his admiration,
and, to do him justice, the fear was not wholly for conventions and
comforts; the man had certain broad moralities and loyalties. A reflex
muscular action had set in to regain what he had lost. "Judith!
Judith!" he begged.

Her raised hand stopped him. "You are too late, Sam."

"My dear, you mustn't get the idea that I don't love you still."

"Love has nothing to do with it any more. Besides, it is never any use
to talk of love without justice."

He went out, dazed and aggrieved. He had always thought they got along
as well as most people. _He_ had not been cherishing grudges.

Womanlike, having met the emergency gallantly, after it was all over
Judith collapsed. The day of reckoning for which she had so long been
running up an account was on her. But the growing assurance rallied
her, that her going away and her coming back were equally means to her