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296 He pushed open the French window and strode on to the terrace.

"Step out here," he said.

She went out.

"This," he said, glancing about him,"this is th' place you stood on th' night you showed yourself to the strikers."

She made no answer.

"It's as good a place as any," he went on. "I'm going to have it out with you," he said, with bitter significance.

Then, for the first time, it struck her that she had overstepped the mark and done a dangerous thing, but she would have borne a great deal sooner than turn back, and so she remained.

"I've stood it a long time," he said, "and now I'm going to reckon up. There's a good bit of reckoning up to be done betwixt you and me, for all you've held me at arm's length."

"I am glad," she put in, "that you acknowledge that I did hold you at arm s length, and that you were not blind to it."

"Oh," he answered, "I wasn't blind to it, no more than you were blind to the other; and from first to last it's been my comfort to remember that you weren't blind to the other—that you knew it as well as I did. I've held to that."

He came close to her.

"When I give up what I'd worked twenty year to get, what did I give it up for? For you. When I took Ffrench in partner, what did I run the risk for? For you. What was to pay me? You."

His close presence in the shadow was so intolerable to her that she could have cried out, but she did not.