the expression of face with which she said "It's true!" was alive with a sort of proud emotion that confessed friendship and invited its return.
He said humbly: "It's—it's mighty good of you to say so. You've been kindness itself to me here."
She put her elbows on the table and leaned forward toward him in her chair. "Because I wanted you to like me," she said in a low voice. "Do you? . . . Because," she went on fiercely, "I've hated myself so—in this life here—that I thought you would despise me. And I—I've done despicable things. Polk—he was in one of them—before I learned what such men are. You don't know. You can't—because you're—you're different."
He tried to speak, with a confused smile.
"No," she said, with the same desperate rapidity of utterance, "don't say that. Don't say anything. I'm—they've That brute has upset me. I shouldn't be saying such things. I can't help it. I—I have to speak or I shall be crying. Don't look at me." He fixed his eyes on the floor, bewildered. "I hated everyone. I looked at them and hated them. It's your fault that" She choked. "You mustn't judge me. You came to me from Coulton, and that afternoon at Port George—from the life I'd run away from—and you spoke to me from it. It was that. That's why I wanted you to go away, to go home—and you wouldn't. And I wasn't strong enough—myself—I wanted to see you and talk to you. You mustn't judge me. You can't—you can't understand. It's"
The cue came: "Lady Whortley, the tenantry are
