'
'Are you speaking of Silverbridge now?'
'Of course I am speaking of Silverbridge. I suppose I ought to
hide it all and not tell you. But as you are the only person I do
tell, you must put up with me. Yes;--when I taxed him with his
falsehood,--for he had been false,--he answered me with those very
words! "I have changed my mind." He could not lie. To speak the
truth was a necessity to him, even at the expense of his
gallantry, almost of his humanity.'
'Has he been false to you, Mabel?'
'Of course he has. But there is nothing to quarrel about if you
mean that. People do not quarrel now about such things. A girl has
to fight her own battle with her own pluck and her own wits. As
with these weapons she is generally stronger than her enemy, she
succeeds sometimes although everything else is against her. I
think I am courageous, but his courage beat mine. I craned at the
first fence. When he was willing to swallow my bait, my hand was
not firm enough to strike the hook in his jaws. Had I not quailed
then I think I should have-"had him".
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