"Come," he said consolingly, "it is all for the best. We made a mistake.
In a few years we shall look back to this, and thank Heaven for saving us
many years of unhappiness. We are not suited to each other, Anna. We
never should have been happy."

It was characteristic of the man to be more afraid of a fainting fit than
of a broken heart.

He went to her side and stood, not daring to touch her, for fear of
arousing another of those fits of passion in her which neither of them
seemed to understand. At length she spoke in a singular monotonous tone
which an experienced doctor would have recognised at once as the speech
of a tongue unguided for the time being. She did not look up, but kept
her eyes fixed on the carpet as if reading there.

"Some day," she said, "I will pay you back. Some day--some day. I do not
know how, but I feel that you will be sorry you ever did this."

Twenty-five years afterwards these words came back to him in a flash.
They passed through his brain--conglomerate--in a flash, in a hundredth
part of the time required to speak them.

Even at the time of hearing them, spoken in that voice which did not seem
to belong to Anna Hethbridge at all, he turned pale. For all the hatred
that burnt within her like a fire smouldered in the deliberate tones of
her voice. Hatred and love can teach us more in a moment than the
experience of a lifetime; for through either of them we see ourselves
face to face. This hatred made Anna Agar in twenty-four hours, and the
woman thus created went through a lifetime unchanged.