Her answer came quickly: "I do not know that my husband is dead. It has
never been verified."

He was tempted again, but only for an instant. "It is an unfortunate
position for you," he replied.

He had intended saying it in a tone of sympathy, but at the moment he saw
Hagar looking up toward them from the abbey, and an involuntary but
ulterior meaning crept into the words. He loved, and he could detect love,
as he thought. He knew by the look that she swept from Hagar to him that
she loved the artist. She was agitated now, and in her agitation began to
pull off her glove. For the moment the situation was his.

"I can understand your being wicked," she said keenly, "but not your being
cowardly. That is and was unpardonable."

"That is and was," he repeated after her. "When was I cowardly?" He was
composed, though there was a low fire in his eyes.

"Then and now."

He understood well. "I, too, was a coward once," he said, looking her
steadily in the eyes, "and that was when I hid from a young girl a
miserable sin of mine. To have spoken would have been better, for I could
but have lost her, as I've lost her now forever."

She was moved, but whether it was with pity or remembrance or reproach he
did not know and never asked, for, looking at her ungloved hand as she
passed it over her eyes wearily, he saw the ring he had given her twelve
years before. He stepped forward quickly with a half smothered cry and