"You were not--you did not--you--" But he choked.

She nodded, not brazenly or crudely or coarsely, not even bravely, but in utter simplicity.

For the time she was wholly free of woman coquetry.

It was as though the elements had left her also elemental.

Her words now were of the earth, the air, the fire, the floods of life.
"Yes," she said, "I will tell you now, because of what you have done for me.