“Well, they’re open enough now in all conscience.  But there’s one thing she hasn’t found out.  She doesn’t know how it happened.  Can you tell her? I can’t.  I told her there were extenuating circumstances; but of course I couldn’t go into them.”

“What did she say?”

“She said no circumstances could extenuate facts.”

“I can hear her saying it.”

“I understand her state of mind,” said Majendie.  “She couldn’t see the circumstances for the facts.”

“Our Anne is but young.  In ten years’ time she won’t be able to see the facts for the circumstances.”

“Well—­will you tell her?”

“Of course I will.”

“Make her see that I’m not necessarily an utter brute just because I——­”

“I’ll make her see everything.”

“Forgive me for bothering you.”

“Dear—­forgive me for breaking my promise and deceiving you.”

He bent to her weak arms.

“I believe,” she whispered, “the end will yet justify the means.”

“Oh—­the end.”

He didn’t see it; but he was convinced that there could hardly be a worse beginning.

He went upstairs, where Anne lay in the agonies of her bilious attack.  He found comfort, rather than gave it, by holding handkerchiefs steeped in eau-de-Cologne to her forehead.  It gratified him to find that she would let him do it without shrinking from his touch.

But Anne was past that.

CHAPTER IV

For once in his life Majendie was glad that he had a business.  Shipping (he was a ship-owner) was a distraction from the miserable problem that weighed on him at home.

Anne’s morning face was cold to him.  She lay crushed in her bed.  She had had a bad night, and he knew himself to be the cause of it.

His pity for her hurt like passion.

“How is she?” asked Edith, as he came into her room before going to the office.

“She’s a wreck,” he said, “a ruin.  She’s had an awful night.  Be kind to her, Edie.”

Edie was very kind.  But she said to herself that if Anne was a ruin that was not at all a bad thing.

Edith Majendie was a loving but shrewd observer of the people of her world.  Lying on her back she saw them at an unusual angle, almost as if they moved on a plane invisible to persons who go about upright on their legs.  The four walls of her room concentrated her vision in bounding it.  She saw few women and fewer men, but she saw them apart from those superficial activities which distract and darken judgment.  Faces that she was obliged to see bending over her had another aspect for Edith than that which they presented to the world at large.  Anne Majendie, who had come so near to Edith, had always put a certain distance between herself and her other friends.  While they were chiefly impressed with her superb superiority, and saw her forever standing on a pedestal,