"
"Yes, I found one--one who thought me everything--everything till
I told him."
"You told him?"
"Yes."
"In the name of God, what for? You must be crazy. What the deuce did
you want to tell him for?"
"It was the only fair thing to do," she said quietly.
"Fair? Rot! That's chucking your chances away. That's playing the
fool! What's he got to do with your life before you met him?" This
was flinging the blame at him.
"Would you rather that the woman you were going to marry kept silent,
risked your not finding out afterwards? Would you think she'd treated
you fairly if she said nothing, and you were to discover it when it
was too late?"
He had no answer. He tried to make one. His lips parted; then, in
silence, he turned away.
"It might have made your mind easier," she said quietly, without tone
of blame, "but it wouldn't have been fair."
He twisted back. "There's no need for my mind to be made easier,"
he said hardly. "I've treated you fairly from the beginning to the
end. I warned you in the first instance; I told you to have no truck
with me. I sent you away. You came back. I didn't ask you to come
back."
Janet's words flashed across Sally's memory; the words she had said
when they were talking over the bangle: "I don't care what you say
about that letter, the letter's nothing! It's the gift that's the
thing.
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