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Cynthia made a little gesture of impatience without turning her head.

“Oh, you needn’t treat me as if I were on a different plane,” she said. “I’m a sinner, too, in my own humble way. It’s unreasonable of you to go on like that, unkind as well. I may be only a sprat in your estimation, but even a sprat has its little feelings, its little heartaches, too, I daresay.” She broke off with a sigh and a laugh; then, drawing impulsively nearer to him, but still without turning: “Do you remember once, ages and ages ago, you were on the verge of saying something to me, of–telling me something? And we were interrupted. Mr. West, I’ve been waiting all these years to hear what that something was.”

West did not stir an eyelid. His face was stern and hard.

“I forget,” he said.

She turned upon him then, raising a finger and pointing straight at him.

“That,” she said, with conviction, “is just one of your lies!”

West became silent, still staring fixedly into the fire.

Cynthia drew nearer still. She touched his breast with her outstretched finger.

“Mr. West,” she said gravely, “I suppose you’ll have to leave off being a blackguard, and take to being an honest man. That’s the only solution of the difficulty that I can think of now that you have got a crippled wife to look after.”

He gripped her wrist, but still he would not look at her.

“This is madness,” he said, grinding out the words through clenched teeth. “You are making a fatal mistake. I am not fit to be your husband. It is not in my power to give you happiness.”

She did not shrink from his hold, though it was almost violent. Her eyes were shining like stars.

“That,” she said, with quaint assurance, “is just another of your lies.”

His hand relaxed slowly till her wrist was free.

“Do you know,” he said, still with that iron self-suppression, “that only a few weeks ago I committed forgery?”

“Yes,” said Cynthia. “And I know why you did it, too. It wasn’t exactly clever, but it was just dear of you all the same.”

The swindler’s face quivered suddenly, uncontrollably. He tried to laugh–the old harsh laugh–but the sound he uttered was akin to something very different. He leaned forward sharply, and covered his face with his hands.

And in that moment Cynthia knew that the walls of the citadel had fallen at last, so that it lay open for her to enter in.

She knelt up quickly. Her arm slipped round his neck. She drew his head with soft insistence to her breast.

“My own boy, it’s over; forget it all. It wasn’t meant to handicap you always. We’ll have another deal now, please God, and start afresh as partners.”

There followed a pause–a silence that had in it something sacred. Then West raised himself, and took her face between his hands. For a moment he looked deep into her eyes, his own alight with a vital fire.

Then, “As lovers, Cynthia,” he said, and kissed her on the lips.