Anna the Adventuress

"Will you say what you have to say, please, and go. I am tired, and I

want to be alone."

He came and stood on the hearthrug close to her.

"Anna," he said, "you make it all indescribably hard for me. Will you

not remember what has passed between us? I have the right to take my

place by your side."

"You have no right at all," she answered. "Further than that, I am

amazed that you should dare to allude to those few moments, to that

single moment of folly. If ever I could bring myself to ask you any

favour, I would ask you to forget even as I have forgotten."

"Why in Heaven's name should I forget?" he cried. "I love you, Anna,

and I want you for my wife. There is nothing but your pride which

stands between us."

"There is great deal more," she answered coldly. "For one thing I am

going to marry David Courtlaw."

He stepped back as though he had received a blow.

"It is not possible," he exclaimed.

"Why not?"

"Because you are mine. You have told me that you cared. Oh, you cannot

escape from it. Anna, my love, you cannot have forgotten so soon."

He fancied that she was yielding, but her eyes fell once more upon

that fatal envelope, and her tone when she spoke was colder than ever.

"That was a moment of madness," she said. "I was lonely. I did not

know what I was saying."

"I will have your reason for this," he said. "I will have your true

reason."

She looked at him for a moment with fire in her eyes.

"You need a reason. Ask your own conscience. What sort of a standard

of life yours may be I do not know, yet in your heart you know very

well that every word you have spoken to me has been a veiled insult,

every time you have come into my presence has been an outrage. That is

what stands between us, if you would know--that."

She pointed to the envelope still resting upon the mantelpiece. He

recognized the handwriting, and turned a shade paler. Her eyes noted

it mercilessly.

"But your sister," he said. "What has she told you?"

"Everything."

He was a little bewildered.

"But," he said, "you do not blame me altogether?"

She rose to her feet.

"I am tired," she said, "and I want to rest. But if you do not leave

this room I must."

He took up his hat.

"Very well," he said. "You are unjust and quixotic, Anna, you have no

right to treat any one as you are treating me. And yet--I love you.

When you send for me I shall come back. I do not believe that you will

marry David Courtlaw. I do not think that you will dare to marry

anybody else."