"Why did you run away from me ?" She drew away from him, her eyes searching his face.
"I lied to you," she breathed, her words coming to him in a whisper.

"I lied--" The words caught in her throat.

He saw her struggling to control herself, to stop the quivering of her lip, the tremble in her voice.

In another moment she had broken down, and with a low, sobbing cry sank in a chair beside the table and buried her head in her arms.

As Howland saw the convulsive trembling of her shoulders, his soul was flooded with a strange joy--not at this sight of her grief, but at the knowledge that she was sorry for what she had done.