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 been fond of you. She said I'd tried to steal you from her."

For a moment he simply sat very still, staring at her. She felt his hand grow cold and relax its grasp. At last he whispered, "She said that? She said such things to you?"

"Yes . . . I ran away from her in the end. It was the only thing I could do."

Then all at once he fell on his knees and laid his head in her lap. She heard him saying, "There's nothing I can say, Mary. I didn't think she'd do a thing like that . . . and now I know, I know what kind of a woman she is. Oh, I'm so tired, Mary . . . you don't know how tired I am!"

She began to stroke his dark hair, and the sudden thought came to her with horror that in her desire for vengeance upon Emma Downes, it was not Emma she had hurt, but Philip.

He said, "You don't know what it is, Mary,—for months now . . . for years even, I've been finding out bit by bit . . . to have something gone that you've always believed in, to have some one you loved destroyed bit by bit, in spite of anything you can do. I tried and tried, but it was no good. And now . . . I can't hold out any more. I can't do it . . . I hate her . . . but I can never let her know it. I can never hurt her . . . because she really loves me, and it's true what she says . . . that she did everything for me. She fed and clothed me herself with her own hands."

Again Mary wanted to cry out, "She doesn't love you. She doesn't love any one but herself!" and again she kept silent. 