"You despise me because I told you!" she exclaimed.

"No, no, Mrs. Winnie," he said. "I could not possibly do that - "

"Then - then why - " she whispered. - "Would it be so hard to love me?"

"It would be very easy," he said, "but I dare not let myself."

She looked at him piteously. "You are so cold - so merciless!" she cried.

He answered nothing, and she sat trembling. "Have you ever loved a woman?" she asked.

There was a long pause. He sat in the chair again. "Listen, Mrs. Winnie" - he began at last.

"Don't call me that!" she exclaimed. "Call me Evelyn - please."

"Very well," he said - "Evelyn. I did not intend to make you unhappy - if I had had any idea, I should never have seen you again. I will tell you - what I have never told anybody before. Then you will understand."

He sat for a few moments, in a sombre reverie.

"Once," he said, "when I was young, I loved a woman - a quadroon girl. That was in New Orleans; it is a custom we have there. They have a world of their own, and we take care of them, and of the children; and every one knows about it. I was very young, only about eighteen; and she was even younger. But I found out then what women are, and what love means to them. I saw how they could suffer. And then she died in childbirth - the child died, too."

Montague's voice was very low; and Mrs. Winnie sat with her hands clasped, and her eyes riveted upon his face. "I saw her die," he said. "And that was all. I have never forgotten it. I made up my mind then that I had done wrong; and that never again while I lived would I offer my love to a woman, unless I could devote all my life to her. So you see, I am afraid of love. I do not wish to suffer so much, or to make others suffer. And when anyone speaks to me as you did, it brings it all back to me - it makes me shrink up and wither."

He paused, and the other caught her breath.

"Understand me," she said, her voice trembling. "I would not ask any pledges of you. I would pay whatever price there was to pay - I am not afraid to suffer."

"I do not wish you to suffer," he said. "I do not wish to take advantage of any woman."

"But I have nothing in the world that I value!" she cried. "I would go away - I would give up everything, to be with a man like you. I have no ties - no duties - "

He interrupted her. "You have your husband - " he said.

And she cried out in sudden fury - "My husband!"