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 starved heart with the hope, faint hope though it were, that he would come to care a little, that he would not utterly despise her, that he would understand and forgive, when he learned why she had played out her part, nor believe that she was the embodiment of all that was ignoble, coarse, and crude; that he would show a little faith in her, a little faith that like a flickering taper might light the way for … Love.

But that hope was now dead within her, and cold. She had but to look at him to see how groundless it had been, how utterly unmoved he was by her distress. He waited patiently—that was all—seeming so very tall, a pillar of righteous strength, distinguished and at ease in his evening clothes: waiting, patient but cold, dispassionate and disdainful.

"I am waiting, you see. Might I suggest that we have not all week for our—our mutual differences?"

His tone was altogether changed; she would hardly have known it for his voice. Its incisive, clipped accents were like a knife to her sensitiveness. … She summoned the reserve of her strength, stood