wall between the two gardens was swinging back and forth on
sagging hinges; David watched it with unseeing eyes; suddenly a
sooty pigeon came circling down and lit just inside the old
arbor, which was choked with snow shovelled from the flagstones
of the path. Who can say why, watching the pigeon's teetering
walk on the soot-specked snow, David should smell the fragrance
of heliotrope hot in the sunshine, and see Elizabeth drawing
Blair's ring from her soft young bosom? He turned back to her
uncle, with a rigid face: "Well, _I--I_ said--'no' to her
letter. Do you understand? I told her 'no.' '_No_,' to a
girl like Elizabeth! Because, in my--my filthy pride--" he
paused, picked up a book, turned it over and over, and then put
it straight edge to edge with the table. His hand was trembling
violently. When he could speak again it was in a whisper. "My
cursed pride. I didn't want to marry until I could do everything.
I wasn't willing to be under obligations; I told her so. I said--
'no.' It made her angry. It would make any girl angry,--but
Elizabeth! Why, she used to bite herself when she was angry. When
she is angry, she will do--anything. _She has done it._ My
God!"

Robert Ferguson could not look at him. He made a pretense of
taking up some papers from his desk, and somehow or other got
himself out of the room. He found Miss White in the hall,
clasping and unclasping her little thin old hands.

"How did he--?" she tried to say, but her poor nibbling lip could
not finish the question.

"How does a man usually take a stab in the back?" he flung at