"As if you need tell me that! As if I didn't know you of old, my poor
friend, kindest and gentlest of men! Why, I am holding your hands, and
see into the very depths of your heart!"

(I put down all she said as she said it. Of course I am not, and never
have been, what her old affectionate regard made me seem in her eyes,
any more than I am the bloodthirsty monster I passed for. Woman-like,
she was the slave of her predilections.)

"And now, Mr. Ibbetson," she went on, "let me first of all tell you, for
a certainty, that the sentence will be commuted. I saw the Home
Secretary three or four hours ago. The real cause of your deplorable
quarrel with your uncle is an open secret. His character is well known.
A Mrs. Gregory (whom you knew in Hopshire as Mrs. Deane) has been with
the Home Secretary this afternoon. Your chivalrous reticence at the
trial...."

"Oh," I interrupted, "I don't care to live any longer! Now that I have
met you once more, and that you have forgiven me and think well of me in
spite of everything, I am ready to die. There has never been anybody but
you in the world for _me_--never a ghost of a woman, never even a friend
since my mother died and yours. Between that time and the night I first
saw you at Lady Cray's concert, I can scarcely be said to have lived at
all. I fed on scraps of remembrance. You see I have no talent for making
new friends, but oh, such a genius for fidelity to old ones! I was
waiting for Mimsey to come back again, I suppose, the one survivor to me
of that sweet time, and when she came at last I was too stupid to
recognize her. She suddenly blazed and dazzled into my poor life like a
meteor, and filled it with a maddening love and pain. I don't know which
of the two has been the sweetest; both have been my life. You cannot