It is quite clear, however, that she is very anxious to keep away from you." "But her reason ?" Elizabeth persisted.

"Did she give you no reason ?" Tavernake looked her in the face.
"She gave me no reason," he said.
"Do you believe that she is justified in treating me like this ?" Elizabeth asked, playing nervously with a pendant which hung from her smooth, bare neck.
"Of course I do," he replied.

"I am quite sure that she would not feel as she does unless you had been guilty of something very terrible indeed." The woman on the couch winced as though some one had struck her.

A more susceptible man than Tavernake must have felt a little remorseful at the tears which dimmed for a moment her beautiful eyes.

Tavernake, however, although he felt a moment's uneasiness, although he felt himself assailed all the time by a curious new emotion which he utterly failed to understand, was nevertheless still immune.