“I think—­I think I hate you,” she whispered.

His taut muscles seemed to relax.

“I hope you do,” he said steadily.  “It will be better so.”

Something in the quiet acceptance of his tone moved her to a softer, more wistful emotion.

“If it had been anything—­anything but that, Garth, I think I could have borne it.”

There was a depth of appeal in the low-spoken words.  But he ignored it, opposing a reckless indifference to her softened mood.

“Then it’s just as well it wasn’t ‘anything but that.’  Otherwise”—­sardonically—­“you might have felt constrained to abide by your rash promise to marry me.”

His eyes flashed over her face, mocking, deriding.  He had struck where she was most vulnerable, accusing where her innate honesty of soul admitted she had no defence, and she winced away from the speech almost as though it had been a blow upon her body.

It was true she had given her promise blindly, in ignorance of the facts, but that could not absolve her.  It was not Garth who had forced the promise from her.  It was she who had impetuously offered it, never conceiving such a possibility as that he might be guilty of the one sin for which, in her eyes, there could be no palliation.

“I know,” she said unevenly.  “I know.  You have the right to remind me of my promise.  I—­I blame myself.  It’s horrible—­to break one’s word.”

She was silent a moment, standing with bent head, her instinct to be fair, to play the game, combating the revulsion of feeling with which the knowledge of Garth’s act of cowardice had filled her.  When she looked up again there was a curious intensity in her expression, wanly decisive.

“Marriage for us—­now—­could never mean anything but misery.”  The effort in her voice was palpable.  It was as though she were forcing herself to utter words from which her inmost being recoiled.  “But I gave you my promise, and if—­if you choose to hold me to it—­”

“I don’t choose!” He broke in harshly.  “You may spare yourself any anxiety on that score.  You are free—­as free as though we had never met.  I’m quite ready to bow to your decision that I’m not fit to marry you.”

A little caught breath of unutterable relief fluttered between her lips.  If he heard it, he made no sign.

“And now”—­he turned as though to leave her—­“I think that’s all that need be said between us.”

“It is not all”—­in a low voice.

“What?  Is there more still?” Again his voice held an insolent irony that lashed her like a whip.  “Haven’t you yet plumbed the full depths of my iniquity?”

“No.  There is still one further thing.  You said you loved me?”

“I did—­I do still, if such as I may aspire to so lofty an emotion.”

“It was a lie.  Even”—­her voice broke—­“even in that you deceived me.”

It seemed as though the tremulously uttered words pierced through his armour of sneering cynicism.