[Illustration: "Do not call yourself a dishonored man!"]
"You followed like a lamb. It took five minutes to wheedle the
club-house out of you--five minutes, I think you told me, Mr.
Travers?--and the other things went just as smoothly. Do you remember
that ride we had together after Mr. Travers' dance? He had broached
the subject of the mine, but the next day something or other seemed
to have shaken your implicit belief in our integrity and general
holiness. At any rate, you asked me for my advice--my honest advice. I
gave it you. I told you to go ahead--that Mr. Travers was an angel of
goodness and perfection. That was what he suggested I should say, in a
note he had sent me an hour before. So you went ahead. You did the
dirty work for him, and took his responsibility upon your shoulders.
You have ruined a few of us incidentally, but above all things you
have ruined yourself and your people. Mr. Travers is unharmed. He has
his wife's money."
She paused to gather her strength for a final effort. "So much for Mr.
Travers' and my partnership. I did my share of the work to shield
myself and my mother from a trouble which must now go its way. But
after that, I played my own game. I did not want to lose you--even
though I knew quite well that you cared for me, and that I should
never marry you. Months before I had made up my mind to marry a man
with a high position and money. It was just a game I was playing with
you.
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