"No! I must try and avoid that!
You have been looking forward with so much joy to this meeting then? I
am flattered."
She shivered a little.
"I have looked forward to it," she answered, and her voice was dull
and lifeless with pain. "But you are not glad to see me," she
continued. "There is no welcome in your face! You are
changed--altogether! Why did you send for me?"
"Listen!"
There was a moment's silence. Wingrave was standing upon the
hearthrug, cold, passionless, Sphinx-like. Lady Ruth was seated a few
feet away, but her face was hidden.
"You owe me something!" he said.
"Owe--you something?" she repeated vaguely.
"Do you deny it?" he said.
"Oh, no, no!" she declared with emotion. "Not for a moment."
"I want," he said, "to give you an opportunity of repaying some
portion of that debt!"
She raised her eyes to his. Her whispered words came so softly that
they were almost inaudible.
"I am waiting," she said. "Tell me what I can do!"
He commenced to speak at some length, very impassively, very
deliberately.
"You will doubtless appreciate the fact," he said, "that my position,
today, is a somewhat peculiar one. I have had enough of solitude. I am
rich! I desire to mix once more on equal terms amongst my fellows. And
against that, I have the misfortune to be a convicted felon, who has
spent the last ten or a dozen years amongst the scum of the earth,
engaged in degrading tasks, and with no identity save a number.
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