Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/320

 could not guess. I, too, had suffered. I am glad, now, that I suffered—because I can better understand you."

"You are an angel," he answered, dry-lipped. "I never deserved you. Well, so much the worse for me! We talked, you and I, at the house. Millicent did not come. As your influence slowly humanized me, I began to feel—a little a very little—remorse for my harshness to her; for, after all, as she said, her sin had been for love's sake. I asked myself what I would do, if I were a woman, and in her place. The answer came quickly. I would take my own life. I thought that was what she would do, and when I grew obsessed with the idea, I went to look for her at the Tower. She had opened the door, somehow, and gone in. As I expected, she was dead. Her face was awful to see. Never have I ceased seeing it for an instant since. I remembered her words, 'no scandal!' and I decided that it would be better for her sake—for yours, too, since any true explanation of the scene which had brought about her death would involve telling our story—I decided it would be better to hide the revolver, which was lying near her hand.

"My only idea then was that she had killed herself because of my words. I didn't recognize the revolver as Ian Barr's, but I knew I had seen it, and fancied she might have owned the thing, without mentioning it to me. Now, I am sure she must have taken it from his