"Why do you ask me this?" he demanded at last. "What has that to
do with us? That was long ago. It is dead, it is forgotten. Why
rake up the folly of a deed of youth and recklessness, long years
dead and gone? Why, the other man, and the woman herself, are dead
and gone now, both of them. Then, why?"
"I will tell you why. That happened once in my own experience."
"Impossible!"
"Yes, impossible. It should have been impossible among men at this
day of the world. But it happened. I also had the distinguished
honor to be the stake in some such game, and that because--indirectly
because--I had won the enmity, the suspicions at least--well, we will
say, of persons high in authority in this land."
"But, my dear young lady, the conditions can not have been the
same. Assuredly the result was not the same!"
"By whose credit, then? Who thinks of a woman? Who is there whose
hand is not raised against her? Each member of her own sex is her
enemy. Each member of the opposite sex is her foe.
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