"If you were a woman and knew you were merely coveted in general, as a woman, and that you had been just cheaply played for in a game of cards, in a public place--what would you do, if you could, to the man who lost--or the man who won?
Would you be delivered over?
That woman, was she--but she could not help herself; she had no place to turn, poor girl?
And she paid all her life, then, for some act earlier, which left her fair game?
Was that it ?" "But you, my dear girl! It is impossible!" "I was more fortunate, that is all.

Would you blame me if I dreaded the memory of such an incident; if I felt a certain shrinking from one who ever figured in such an incident?
If I could trust--but then, but then--Are you very sure that Mr.Parish loved that woman ?" "I am sure of it," answered the old man soberly.

"Did he use her well ?" "All her life.

He gave her everything--" "Oh, that is nothing! Did he give her--after he had learned, maybe, that she was not what he had thought--did he give her then--love--belief, trust?
Did he--are you very sure that any man in such case, after such an incident, _could_ have loved, really loved, the woman whom he held in that way--" "I not only believe he might, my dear girl, but I know that in this one case--the only one of my experience"-- he smiled--"such was the truth.

There was some untold reason why they two did not, or could not, marry.