He saw that all the goodness of her nature was trying to arouse itself
and assure him of forgiveness. It did not deceive him in the least.

"I won't be so mean now as to say I was weak," he added. "I was not
weak; I was bad. I always felt I was born a liar and a thief. I've lied
to myself all my life; and I've lied to other people because I never was
a true man."

"A thief!" she said at last, scarcely above a whisper, and looking at him
with a flash of horror in her eyes. "A thief!"

It was no use; he could not allow her to think he meant a thief in the
vulgar, common sense, though that was what he was: just a common
criminal.

"I have stolen the kind thoughts and love of people to whom I gave
nothing in return," he said steadily. "There is nothing good in me.
I used to think I was good-natured; but I was not, or I wouldn't have
brought misery to a girl like you."

His truth broke down the barriers of her anger and despair. Something
welled up in her heart: it may have been love, it may have been inherent
womanliness.

"Why did you marry Christine?" she asked.

All at once he saw that she never could quite understand. Her stand-
point would still, in the end, be the stand-point of a woman. He saw
that she would have forgiven him, even had he not loved her, if he had
not married Christine. For the first time he knew something, the real