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272 He remained silent, again shook his shoulders, restlessly, not understanding her, not recognizing her at all. This woman was now a stranger to him; and, above all, her calm seriousness confused him: he would almost have preferred that she should fly out at him and have done with it and tell him that he had no business to go bicycling alone with Marianne.

But she did not do this, she merely repeated, calmly:

"The fault is mine. The fault, the blame is mine alone, Henri. I ought not, in Florence, to have accepted the sacrifice which you made for me, which your father and mother made for me. It was my fault that your life did not become . . . what it might have been."

Yes, she was frank and calm: he had to admit that; and it was not a crafty prelude leading up to one of her angry scenes. She was speaking so quietly and gently; her voice had a note of sorrowful humility that almost touched him.

"But what are you driving at?" he said, nevertheless, in a voice that was still nervous and jerky. "You are very frank and honest in looking at things like that; but what is the use of it all now? It is so long ago. It is the past. And it was my duty then to make up for the wrong which I had done you."

"I had done you quite as great a wrong, Henri.