"For goodness' sake tell us something new," says Mrs. Chichester, with open disgust.

"Isn't that new? Well, this man was at a prayer-meeting of some sort. There is a sort of bad man that hankers after prayer-meetings, and, of course, this was a bad man because he hated his wife. It was at the East End, and Job was the subject. Job is good for an East-End meeting, because patience is the sort of thing you must preach there nowadays if you wish to keep your houses from being set on fire; and he heard of all the troubles of Job, and how he was cursed—and how his children and cattle and goods had been taken from him—and only his wife left! That struck him—about the wife! 'Hang it! That was a big curse!' said he. 'Fancy leaving the wife!' And the odd part of it was," says Hescott, lifting his eyes and looking deliberately at Rylton, "that his wife was an angel, whereas he—well, she was the Job of his life. She had to endure all things at his hands."

Rylton looks back at him, and feels his brow grow black with rage. He would have liked to take him and choke the life out of him.

"A delightful story," says he, with a sneer. "So fresh, so original!"

"Very dull, I think," says Mrs. Chichester, who can't hold her tongue. "An everyday sort of thing. Lady Rylton, what do you think?"

But when they look round for her they find Tita has disappeared.



CHAPTER XIV.

HOW TITA FLINGS HERSELF UPON MARGARET'S BREAST; AND HOW MARGARET COMFORTS HER; AND HOW TITA PROMISES TO BE GOOD; AND HOW SHE HAS A MEETING "BY LAMPLIGHT ALONE."



It is now eleven o'clock. Margaret, who is in her own room, and has sent her maid to bed, is sitting over her fire dreaming of many things, when her door is suddenly opened and as suddenly closed, and, just as suddenly as all the rest of it, a little fragile thing runs towards her, and flings herself in a perfectly tragic fashion upon her breast, lying there prone—lost, apparently, in an unappeasable outburst of grief.

"Tita, my child, my darling! What has happened?" exclaims Margaret, pressing the girl to her. "Do look up, my dear, and tell me. There is nothing new, surely, Tita."

"Oh, I'm tired—I'm tired of it all!" cries Tita wildly. "I want to be done with it. Oh, Margaret, I've said nothing, nothing! Have I, now?" appealing to her with great drenched eyes. "But I can go on no longer. He hates me."

"Oh, hush, hush, Tita!"

"He does! He was unkind to me all to-day. He is always unkind to me. He hates me, and he—loves her."

"I don't think so. I don't, really. Sit down, darling," says Margaret, in great agitation.

"I know he does. Did you see that he would hardly speak to me this evening, and——"

"I thought it was you who would not speak to him."

"Oh no, no! I was longing to speak to him. I can't bear being bad friends with anyone; but, of course, I could not go up to him, and tell him so; and he—what did he do?—he spent the whole evening with Mrs. Bethune in the conservatory."

"Tita, I assure you he was not alone with her then. Mrs. Chichester——"

"I don't care about his being alone with her," says Tita, whose mind is as fresh as her face. "He was with her all the evening; you know he was. Oh, how I hate that woman!"

"Tita, listen——"

"Yes; I hate her. And——" She stops and lays her hands on Margaret's arm and looks piteously at her. "Do you know," says she, "I used not to hate people. I thought once I hated my uncle, but I didn't know. It was nothing like this. It is dreadful to feel like this."

There is poignant anguish in the young voice. It goes to Margaret's heart.

"Tita, be sensible," says she sharply. "Do you think all the misery of the world is yours?"

"No, no," faintly. "Only my portion is so heavy."

She bursts into tears.

"Good heavens!" says Margaret distractedly, caressing her and soothing her. "What a world it is! Why, why cannot you and Maurice see how delightful you both are? It is an enigma. No one can solve it. Tita darling, take heart. Why—why, if Marian were so bad as you think her—which I pray God she isn't—still, think how far you can surpass her in youth, in charm, in beauty."

"Beauty!"

The girl looks up at Margaret as if too astonished to say more.

"Certainly in beauty," firmly. "Marian in her best days was never as lovely as you are. Never!"

"Ah! Now I know you love me," says Tita very sadly. "You alone think that." She pauses, and the pause is eloquent. "Maurice doesn't," says she.

"Maurice is a fool" is on Margaret's lips, but she resists the desire to say it to Maurice's wife, and, in the meantime, Tita has recovered herself somewhat, and is now giving full sway once more to her temper.

"After all, I don't care!" exclaims she. "Why should I? Maurice is as little to me as I am to him. What I do care about is being scolded by him all day long, when I have quite as good a right to scold him. Oh, better! He has behaved badly, Margaret, hasn't he? He should never have married me without telling me of—of her."

"I think he should have told you," says Margaret, with decision. "But I think, too, Tita, that he has been perfectly true to you since his marriage."

"True?"

"I mean—I think—he has not shown any special attention to Marian."

"He showed it to-night, any way," rebelliously.

"He did not indeed. She asked him to show her the chrysanthemums, and what could he do but go with her to the conservatory? And I particularly noticed that as he passed Mrs. Chichester he asked her to come and see them too."

"He didn't ask me, at all events," says Tita.

"Perhaps he was afraid; and, indeed, Tita"—very gently—"you are not so altogether blameless yourself. You talked and played cards the whole night with Mr. Hescott."

"Oh, poor old Tom! That was only because I had been unkind to him in the morning, and because"—ingenuously—"I wanted to pay out Maurice."

Margaret sighs.

"It is all very sad," says she.

"It is," says Tita, tears welling up into her eyes again—a sign of grace that Margaret welcomes.

"Well, go to bed now, darling; and, Tita, if Maurice says anything to you—anything——"

"Cross—I know!" puts in Tita.

"Promise me you will not answer him in anger, do promise me! It makes me so unhappy," says Margaret persuasively, kissing the girl, and pressing her in her arms.

"Oh! Does it? I'm sorry," says Tita, seeing the real distress on Margaret's sweet face. "There! He may say what he likes to me, I shan't answer him back. Not a word! A syllable! I'll be as good as gold!"

She kisses Margaret fondly, and leaves the room.

Outside, in the long corridor, the lamps are beginning to burn dimly. It is already twelve o'clock. Twelve strokes from the hall beneath fall upon Tita's ear as she goes hurriedly towards her own room. It is the midnight hour, the mystic hour, when ghosts do take their nightly rounds!

This is not a ghost, however, this tall young man, who, coming up by the central staircase, meets her now face to face.

"Tita! Is it you?"

"Yes, yes," says Tita, trying to hurry past him.

If Tom has come up from the smoking-room, of course the others will be coming too, and, on the whole, she is not as well got up as usual. It is with a sort of contempt she treats the charming gown in which she is now clothed. And yet she has hardly ever looked lovelier than now, with her eyes a little widened by her late grief, and her hair so sweetly disturbed, and her little slender form showing through the open folds of the long white gown that covers her.

"Don't go. Don't!" says Tom Hescott; his tone is so full of poignant anguish that she stops short. "Stay a moment." In his despair he has caught a fold of her gown. To do him fair justice, he honestly believes that she hates her husband, and that she is thoroughly unhappy with him. Unhappy with great cause. "I am going—you know that, and—I have a last word to say. I tried to say it this afternoon—out there—you know—in the shrubberies, and when you wouldn't listen—I—I respected that. I respected you. But—a time may come when you"—hurriedly—"may not always choose to live this wretched life. There will be a way out of it, Tita—a way not made by you!"

Tita suddenly feels very cold, chilled to her heart's core. She had listened so far as if stunned; but now she wakes, and the face of Marian Bethune seems to look with a cold sneer into hers.

"And after that," goes on Hescott, "if—if——" He breaks down. "Well, if that comes, you know I—love you, Tita."

He tries to take her hand.

"Don't touch me!" says Tita vehemently. She pushes his hand from her; such a disdainful little push. "Oh, I thought you really did love me," says she, "but not like this!" Suddenly a sort of rage and of anger springs to life within her. She turns a face, singularly childish, yet with the sad first break of womanhood upon it, to his. "How dare you love me like this?" says she.

"Tita, listen to me——"

"No. Not I! You must be a fool to talk to me like this. Of what use is it? What good? If you loved me for ever, what good could come of it? I don't love you! Ah!"—she catches her breath and looks straight at him with an undying sense of indignation—"Maurice was right about you, and I was wrong. He saw through you, I didn't. I"—with a little inward glance into her own feelings—"I shan't forgive you for that, either!"

"You mean——"

"It really doesn't matter," says Tita, cruel for the first time in all her sweet young life. The light is so dim that she cannot see his face distinctly. Perhaps if she had, she would have been kinder. "I mean nothing. Only go; go at once! Do you hear?"

Her childish voice grows imperious.

"I am going," says Hescott dully—"in the morning."

"Oh! I'm glad"—smiting her hands together—"by the early train?"

"The earliest!"

Hescott's soul seems dying within him. All at once the truth is clear to him, or, at least, half of it. She may not love her husband, but, beyond all question, love for him—Hescott—has never entered into her mind.

"And a good thing too!" says Tita wrathfully. "I hope I shall never see you here again. I could never bear to look at you after this!" She is standing trembling with agitation before him, like one full-filled with wrath. "To-day—I shall not forget that. To-day—and that story"—she stops as if choking—"what did you mean by telling that story?" demands she, almost violently. "Everyone there knew what you meant. It dragged me down to the ground. I hated you for it! You invented it. You know you did, just to humiliate him! You think Maurice hates me, but he doesn't. It is a lie!" She pauses, her lovely eyes aflame. "It is a lie!" she repeats passionately.

"If so——" begins Hescott, but in so low a tone, and so dead, that she scarcely heeds it.

"And to call me an angel before them all. Ah! I could read through you. So could everyone. It was an insult! I won't be called an angel. I am just what Maurice is, and no more. I wonder Maurice didn't kill you—and he would, only you were his guest. So would I—only——"

She breaks off. The tears are running down her cheeks. She makes a little swift turn of her body towards him.

"Oh, Tom! and I did so believe in you!"

There is a short silence fraught with misery for one soul, at all events.

"Believe in me still," says Tom Hescott, in a queer, low tone. "Believe in me now—and for ever—to"—with passionate fondness—"the last moment of your life." He draws his breath sharply. "And now good-bye."

He struggles with himself, and, failing in the struggle, catches her suddenly to his breast, and there holds her to his heart for half a minute, perhaps.

Then he releases her. It is all over. He had not even tried to kiss her. He goes swiftly past her into the gloom beyond the dying lamp, and is lost.

Tita stands as if stricken dumb. For a second only. Then she is conscious of a hand being laid on her arm, of her being forcibly led forward to her own room, of the door being closed behind her.

She turns and looks up at Rylton. His eyes are blazing. He is dangerously white across cheeks and nose.

"There shall be an end of this!" says he.



CHAPTER XV.

HOW JEALOUSY RUNS RIOT IN OAKDEAN; AND HOW MARGARET TRIES TO THROW OIL UPON THE WATERS; AND HOW A GREAT CRASH COMES, WITH MANY WORDS AND ONE SURPRISE.



Tita has wrenched herself from his grasp.

"Of what?" demands she.

"Do you think you can hoodwink me any longer? There shall be an end of it—do you hear?" Rylton's face, as she now sees it in the light of the lamps in her room, almost frightens her. "I've had enough of it!"

"I don't understand you!" says Tita, standing well away from him, her face as white as ashes.

As for his face——

"Don't you?" violently. "Then I shall explain. I've had enough of what ruins men's lives and honours—of what leads to——"

"To?" says the girl, shrinking, yet leaning forward.

"To the devil—to the Divorce Court!" says Rylton, with increasing violence. "Do you think I did not see you and him just now—you—in his arms! Look here!"

He seizes her arm. There is a quick, sudden movement, and she is once again free. Such a little, fragile creature! She seems to have grown a woman during this encounter, and to be now tall to him, and strong and imperious.

"Don't!" says she, in a curious tone, so low as to be almost unheard, yet clear to him. "Don't come near me. Don't! What do you accuse me of?"

"You know right well. Do you think the whole world—our world, at all events—has not seen how it has been with you and——"

He cannot go on. He pauses, looking at her. He had meant to spare her feelings; but, to his surprise, she meets his gaze fully, and says, "Well?" in a questioning way.

At this his rage bursts forth.

"Are you quite shameless that you talk to me like this?" cries he. "Are you mad?" As he speaks, his fingers tighten on a piece of paper—evidently a letter—that he is holding in his right hand. "You must know that I saw you with him to-night—you—in his arms—you——"

Tita turns upon him.

"It is you who are mad," says she. She goes quite close to him. "He was going. He was bidding me good-bye." She pauses; her breath comes heavily, but she goes on: "He was bidding me good-bye, and—he told me he loved me——"

Rylton flings her from him.

"Do you pretend that was the first time?"

"The first—the first?" cries Tita passionately. "Do you think—do you dare to think that——"

"I refuse to tell you what I think. There is one thing more, however, to be said; you shall give up all further intercourse with your cousin."

Now, Tita had decided, during her late interview with Tom, that she would never willingly see him again; but here and thus to be ordered to do her own desire is more than she can bear.

"No, I shall not do that," says she.

"You shall," says Rylton, whose temper is now beyond his control.

"I shall not." Tita is standing back from him, her small flower-like head uplifted, her eyes on fire. "Oh, coward!" cries she. "You do right to speak to me like this—to me, who have no one to help me."

"You—you!" interrupts he. "Where is Hescott, then?"

His voice, his tone, his whole air, is one great insult.

Tita stands for one moment like a marble thing transfixed; then:

"Tom is not here," says she slowly, contemptuously, and with great meaning. "If he were—— In the meantime, I am in your power, so far that I must listen to you. There is no one to help me. I haven't a living soul in the wide world to stand by me, and you know it."

Here the door is thrown open, and Margaret comes in, pale, uneasy. By a mere chance she had left her room to place a letter for the early post in the box in the corridor outside, and had then seen Hescott going down the corridor (unconscious of Rylton coming up behind him)—had seen the latter's rather rough impelling of Tita into her bedroom, and—— And afraid of consequences, she had at last smothered her dreadful repugnance to interfering with other people's business, and had gone swiftly to Tita's door. Even then she was on the point of giving up—of being false to her principles—when Tita's voice, a little high, a little strained, had frightened her. It had been followed by an angry answer from Rylton. Margaret opened the door and went in.

Tita is standing with her back to a small table, her hands behind her, resting upon it, steadying her. She is facing Rylton, and every one of her small beautiful features breathes defiance—a defiance which seems to madden Rylton. His face is terribly white, and he has caught his under lip with his teeth—a bad sign with him.

"Maurice, it is not her fault. Tita, forgive me! I heard—I saw—I feared something." The gentle Margaret seems all broken up, and very agitated. After a pause, as if to draw her breath—a pause not interrupted, so great is the amazement of the two belligerents before her et her so sudden appearance—she addresses herself solely to Sir Maurice. "She had been with me," she begins. "It was the merest chance her leaving me just then; she was going to her own room."

But Tita cuts he short.

"I forbid you, Margaret!" cries she violently. "Be silent! I tell you I will not have myself either excused or explained. Do not arrange a defence for me. I will not be defended."

"Let me explain, my dearest—do let me explain," entreats Margaret earnestly. "It is for your good."

"It is not; and even if it were, I should not allow it. Besides, there is nothing to explain. I was only bidding good-bye to Tom!" She pauses, and tears spring to her eyes—tears half angry, half remorseful. "Oh, poor Tom!" cries she. "He loves me!" Her breast rises and falls rapidly, and, after a struggle with herself, she bursts out crying. "He was my one friend, I think! And I was so unkind to him! I told him I should never ask him here again! I was abominable to him! And all for nothing—nothing at all. Only because he said he—loved me!"

She is sobbing passionately now.

"Tita," says Rylton; he takes a step towards her.

"As for you," cries she wildly, putting up her hands as if to keep him far from her, "I wish I had been born a beggar. Then," slowly, and in a voice vibrating with scorn—"then I should not have been chosen by you!"

The cut goes home. For a second Rylton winces, then his fingers close even more tightly over the paper he is holding, and a cynical smile crosses his lips.

"You believe much in money," says he.

"I have reason to do so," coldly. The strange smile on his lips has caught her attention, and has killed the more vehement form of her passion. "It induced you to marry me! Your mother told me so!"

"Did she?" He is smiling still. "Well, all that is at an end." Something in his voice makes Margaret look quickly at him, and he flings the letter he has been crushing in his hand to her. "Read that!" says he.

Margaret catches it, opens it hurriedly, and reads. Her face grows very pale. She looks up.

"You got it?"

"By the night mail, two hours ago."

"What is it?" demands Tita imperiously.

She had taken no notice of his giving the letter to Margaret; but now she is sure that some mystery lies in it—a mystery that has something to do with her.

Margaret regards her piteously.

"My dear—I——"

She breaks down, and looks now at Rylton as if reproaching him for having cast this task upon her shoulders. Rylton shakes his head.

"From you—it will be kinder," says he.

"What is it?" asks Tita again, taking a step towards Margaret, and holding out her hand for the letter.

"Your money!" falters Margaret nervously.

"Yes—yes!"

"It is all gone!"

"Gone?"

"All! There is nothing left," says Margaret, pale as ashes.

"Gone!" Tita repeats the word once or twice, as a child might, trying to learn a new syllable; she seems a little stunned. Then suddenly her whole face grows bright; it wakes into a new life as it were. "Is it all gone?" asks she.

"Yes, my dearest girl, I am afraid so. But you must not be unhappy, Tita; I——"

"Oh, unhappy!" cries the girl, in a high clear tone, one full of fresh, sweet courage and delight. She walks straight up to Rylton. "Now I can leave you!" says she.

If she had been planning a revenge, she could hardly have arranged it better. Rylton looks back at her. He is silent, but she reads the disturbance of his soul in his firmly shut mouth, and the little, quick, flittering frown that draws his brows together in momentary rapidity. He had thought many things of her, but that she should hail with rapture the ruin that seemed to give her a chance of escape from him—that thought had not been his.

In a moment, however, he has pulled himself together. He tells himself he sees at once the right course to pursue. In other words, he has decided on conquering her.

"You shall certainly not do that," says he icily.

"I shall, however." She almost laughs as she steps back from him, and up to Margaret. There is an air about her as though she had snapped her pretty fingers in his face. "Now you must help me to gain my living," cries she gaily. "'A child of the people' (I quote your mother again)," smiling at Rylton, "I will go back to the people."

"It is not quite so bad as that," says Margaret, who has been studying the fatal letter with a view of tearing some good out of it. "It seems that when these speculations that your uncle made with your money all failed—and these failures have been going on for years—that still he tried to keep up his credit with you by—by sacrificing all his own money, and——"

"Poor old Uncle George," says the girl softly. For the first time she seems sorry for the misfortune that has fallen on her house. "Perhaps I can go to him, and help him. I dare say, now he is down in the world, he might be a little kinder to me."

"Impossible, Tita. He has gone abroad," says Margaret, who, as she tells herself miserably, is developing into a determined liar!

Uncle George, so runs the letter, has committed suicide. Truly he has gone abroad with a vengeance, and no man knoweth whither.

Tita sighs. It is, to tell truth, a sigh of relief. Uncle George had not been palatable to her.

"Well, I can earn something."

"You need not that," says Margaret. "It seems there is from two to three hundred a year left to you that cannot be disputed. It should be sufficient to——"

"I can live on half that!" cries Tita eagerly.

"You shall live with me," says Rylton, breaking in with cold anger. "You are my wife. You shall not leave me."

Tita makes a little gesture.

"Why waste time over it?" says she. "I shall leave you as soon as ever I can. To-morrow. I am afraid it is too late to-night. I should have gone any way, after what you said to me just now——"

"After what he said to you, you mean!" bursts in Rylton violently, losing all control over his temper. "You were going with him——"

"Maurice!" Margaret has stepped between them. "How dare you speak to her like that?" says she, her calm, kind face transfigured. "I hope to see you ashamed of yourself to-morrow. Be quiet, Tita. I will look after you." She turns again hurriedly to Rylton, who is looking very white and breathing heavily, with his eyes immovably fixed on Tita. "She will come with me—to my house to-morrow," says Margaret. "You will, Tita?"

"Oh yes, to you!" cries Tita, running to her, and flinging herself into her arms. "You are the only one who—of his family"—with a baleful glance at Rylton over her shoulder—"who has been kind to me!"



CHAPTER XVI.

HOW MAURICE TELLS HIS MOTHER OF THE GREAT FIASCO; AND HOW SHE RECEIVES THE NEWS.



The guests have all gone! The morning train had swallowed up the Hescotts, and the eleven o'clock had disposed of the rest. Only the Dowager Lady Rylton and Margaret still remain.

The latter has decided on going by the evening train and taking Tita with her, deeming it best to separate husband and wife for a little while, until the calamity be overpast for a few weeks, at all events. As for Tessie, she had come with a determination to linger on until Christmas with her son and his wife, though asked for three weeks only; and it is her son's pleasing task to be obliged now to explain to her why and wherefore she must go back at once to the old home—to The Place—to the old home partially saved from ruin by his unhappy marriage, and now doomed to a sure destruction because of the loss of the fortune that had been the primary motive in the making of that marriage.

Rylton got through the telling of his lamentable tale more easily than he could have supposed possible. Whilst walking up the stairs to his mother's room, he had tried to compose certain forms of speech that might let the whole affair "down easy," to quote from the modern English language, but had failed utterly. Yet, when on the spot, he had run glibly through it all—coldly—almost without feeling. And his mother had heard him as coldly, until she learned all hope was at an end—as far as Tita's thousands were concerned.

Then she gave way to hysterics!

And even now, when, by the help of a wet sponge and a maid and a bottle of champagne, he has pulled her through, sufficient at all events to be able to talk rationally, she is still in the very lowest depths of despair.

"And to think you should have sacrificed yourself for a mere 'person' like that! A little"—sob—"wretched nobody. Oh! if your father could only see you now! A creature of no family, no manners, no——"

"Who are you talking of, mother? My father?"

"If you can be frivolous at this moment, Maurice, you can be frivolous for ever," says his mother, weeping (presumably) behind her little lace rag, her voice like a dagger.

"I'm far from that," says Maurice, flinging himself into a chair. "But the fact is, mother, let us leave Tita out of this affair. I object to hearing her—er—criticised by you—or anyone."

Tessie weeps afresh.

"The soul of honour," breathes she, apostrophizing the ceiling. "But I cannot let you, Maurice, be so deceived by a mere swindler such as she is. Do you for a moment imagine—ah yes!" throwing up her hands and plainly admiring Maurice with great fervour—"you probably do; you have a soul, Maurice, a great soul, inherited from me! But I shall not permit that little vulgar fraud of a girl to demoralize it. Of course she knew all about her uncle's speculations—and married you gladly, knowing what the end would be. Oh! my poor boy!"

Lady Rylton retires again behind her lace rag.

"That will do," says Maurice curtly.

It seems almost funny to him that he, who has been condemning Tita all the night and morning in his heart, can now be so violently angry with another fellow-creature for decrying her.

"Of course, I know. I understand," says Tessie, still weeping, "it is always so painful to know that one has been thoroughly taken in. No wonder you can't listen even to your own mother with common patience. I excuse you, Maurice. I often had to excuse your dear father. Both you and he were a little weak—a little noble, perhaps—but well, you required someone to look after you. And I—poor, poor I—what could I do?" Tessie shakes her head mournfully from side to side. "And as for this miserable little deception——"

"Look here, mother——"

"Oh! I know, I know. It is not the nice thing to do, of course, but alone with one's only son one may waive a point and condole with him on the abominable qualities of the woman he has chosen to be his wife—— Dear Maurice, you should be careful. Didn't you see that footstool? I quite thought you kicked it. And her laugh. Do you know it used to hurt me?"

"Not until after our marriage, however," says Rylton, who is now a little strung.

"Oh! no wonder you reproach me," says his mother. "I shall for ever reproach myself. Such a person—without a penny—to fling herself into your arms."

"Ah! she had a penny then," says Maurice.

"Then? Yes! Do you think I should have countenanced your marriage otherwise?"

"My dear mother, of course not. I know you too well for that."

His irony is thrown away upon Tessie, who is not equal to these drags upon her intellect, and as a fact Rylton is scarcely listening to her; his whole soul is in a turmoil. He scarcely knows what he wants or what he does not want—whom he loves or hates. Only Tita—Tita is always before him; and as hate is stronger than love, as some folk have it (though they lie), he believes that all his thoughts grow with a cruel persistence of detestation towards the small, ill-tempered child whom he has married.

"At all events she knew what she was about," says Tessie, flinging down her handkerchief and speaking with a touch of viciousness. "She knew perfectly how she stood with her wretched uncle before she married you. No doubt they arranged it between them. She was fully aware of the state of her finances, and so was the uncle. So glad that miserable old person is out of the way for ever, of making young men of family marry young women of no family, who have not even money to recommend them. I must say your—I shudder to utter the word, Maurice—your wife—is as thoroughly dishonest a person as——" Tessie pauses, and casts a furtive glance at him. "After all, there may be a hope for you, Maurice. That cousin! So prononce the whole thing—so unmistakable. And once a divorce was established——"

She never knew afterwards what really happened. Perhaps, after all, nothing happened—nothing material; but what she does know if that Maurice is standing before her, looking like a demon.

"D——n it!" says he. His temper is very bad sometimes. "Can't you see that I won't have a word said against her?"



CHAPTER XVII.

HOW MATTERS COME TO A CLIMAX; AND HOW TITA TELLS MAURICE MANY THINGS THAT STING HIM SHARPLY; AND HOW HE LAYS HANDS UPON HER; AND HOW THE LAST ADIEUX ARE SAID.



"So you have made up your mind," says Maurice, looking at his wife with a glance as full of coldness as it is of rage. "You see your way? It is for ever, remember. You decide on leaving me?"

"Why should I stay?" says Tita.

There is evidently no idea of "staying" about her; she is dressed for a journey, with care—great care—but with all the air of one who is going away for a long, long time. She is exquisitely dressed; the soft gray costume, trimmed with costly furs, sets off her bijou figure to perfection, and her soft, dainty curls show coquettishly from beneath her fur cap. Her eyes are shining like stars; her lips have taken a slightly malicious curve; her rounded chin, soft and white as a baby's, is delicately tilted. She is looking lovely. "Why should I stay?" Her question seems to beat upon his brain. He could have answered it, perhaps, had pride permitted him, but pride is a great tyrant, and rules with an iron rod. And, besides, even if he had answered, she has a tyrant, too—her own pride. As a fact we all have these tyrants, and it is surprising how we hug them to our breasts.

"Why should I stay?" says Tita. "All you wanted from me is gone; now I go too. You should rejoice. If you have lost in one way you have gained in another. You will never see me or my money again!"

The bitterness in the young voice, the hatred in the young eyes, is terrible.

For a full minute Rylton remains silent. The mind is a strange thing, not to be controlled, full of vagaries, and now, for no reason whatever, as it seems to him, it has run back to his wedding morning. Is this the careless, idle, little tomboy who had stood before the altar—the little girl he had assured himself he could mould to his will?

"You forget," says he coldly, "that you are married to me. It is not so simple a matter as you seem to imagine for a wife to throw off her marriage yoke."

"Yoke! What a good word that is!" says Tita, with the air of one making a discovery. Then lightly, "Pouf! Nonsense! I'll show you how easy it is! And as for that——" Again her mood changes. "Don't go in for that sort of thing," says she contemptuously. "Be honest with me now, at the last. You know you will be as glad to get rid of me, as I shall be to be rid of you."

"Speak for yourself," says Rylton slowly. His eyes are on the ground. "I have not said I shall be glad to get rid of you."

"No, I have said it for you. I have befriended you to the very end; and if you will be a hypocrite, why—be it!" cries she gaily.

She throws up her hands with an airy little gesture, full of grace, and anger, and something else difficult to describe, but that certainly is devoid of any sort of mirth.

"Hypocrite or not, remember this," says Maurice, "it is you who have decided on a separation."

"Yes; I—I." She bursts out laughing. "'Alone I did it!' To-day I set you free!"

"Free!"

"Ah, not so free as I would make you!" shaking her head.

He looks at her.

"You are honest, at all events," says he bitterly; then, after a moment, "You approve, then, on the step you are taking?"

Tita makes a gesture of impatience.

"What will you have?" says she. "What do you find fault with now? Have I not behaved well? Have I not behaved beautifully? I stayed with you as long as I had any money—the money for which you gave me your—title. I cannot flatter myself that you gave me more than that for it. Probably you gave me too much. And so now, when the money is gone, the bargain is off, and"—with a shrug of her shoulders, and the saucy glance of a naughty child from under her long lashes—"I am off too! Isn't that being good?"

"Have you no charity?" says he. A dark red flush has crimsoned his forehead. "What a character you give me! Do you think I have no heart?"

"Oh, your heart!" says she gaily. "I don't think you need to be unhappy about it. It will do. You say I am honest, and one thing honestly I do regret, that I should have unwittingly tempted you to marry me because of my money—when now it has all dropped overboard. If I had only known how you regarded it, I——"

"That infernal money!" says he violently.

There is almost a groan in his voice. His eyes are fixed upon her; he is wondering at her. What a child she looks in her pretty frock! What an unreasonable child! But what a charm in the angry eyes of her, the defiance of her whole air! There is something that maddens him in the scornful shrug of her dainty shoulders.

"Oh yes—yes—of course!" says she, bringing the little disdainful shrug into full requisition now. "No wonder you abuse it, poor thing! But for that 'infernal money,' you would never have dreamed of marrying me, and now that it is gone—gone——" She pauses. "Oh," sharply, "I am glad it is gone! It opens for me a way to leave you!"

Rylton strides forward, and seizes her by both her arms.

"Supposing I don't let you go!" says he.

"I shan't ask your permission," returns she calmly, submitting to his violent pressure without a wince—a pressure unmeant—unknown by him, to do him justice. "And I need not! Think of the detestable life we have lived together! Don't I know that you hated it as much as I did—perhaps more! No," softly. "Not more!"

Rylton loosens his hold of her, and steps back. If she had said a thousand words, they could not have brought her meaning more forcibly home to him than these two, "Not more."

"Oh, think!" cries she, clasping her hands in a sort of ecstasy. "To-day—this very day—in an hour or so, we shall be miles, and miles, and miles away from each other! What more can you desire?"

Rylton brings his hand down upon the table before him.

"Nothing!" returns he hoarsely. "I would rather die than subject myself to the misery I have been enduring with you. I would, by heaven!"

"Ah, you speak the truth at last," says she. "Well"—she moves towards him and holds out her hand—"now that you have spoken, I am satisfied. Good-bye; I hope I shall never see you again!"

He thrusts her hand aside.

"I shall remember that," says he.

"That was why I said it," returns she. She has flung up her head, angered a little perhaps even in this desperate moment at his rejection of her hand. Her eyes are gleaming. Her beauty seems to shine out—to grow upon him. Maurice regards her curiously even now—now, when she is going for ever. How can so bitter a spirit dwell in so sweet a temple? "Will you not say good-bye, then?" says she.

"No—never."

She turns away deliberately and leaves the room.



CHAPTER XVIII.

HOW MARGARET STEPS INTO THE BREACH, AND LEARNS THAT ALL PEACEMAKERS ARE NOT BLESSED.



"It is quite the wisest thing to be done at present," says Margaret. "I do hope, Maurice, you will not object to the arrangement."

She regards him anxiously. It is an hour later, and the carriage has been ordered to be at the door in fifteen minutes. Margaret has come to bid Maurice good-bye, and say a few words to him.

"I! What have I got to do with it?" he laughs contemptuously. "She has arranged everything. The farther she goes from me the better. I am sorry that the resting-place she has chosen is so near. Park Lane as usual, I suppose, Margaret? But it won't last, my dear girl. She will go farther afield soon."

"You think her fickle, I don't," says Margaret gravely. "You have misjudged her all along. I believe she loves me. I believe," slowly, "she has a great capacity for loving."

"Are you alluding to her capacity for loving Mr. Hescott?"

"That is unworthy of you," says his cousin. She rises. "I have only a few moments—and your wife is coming with me, and I would say one word to you before I go. She is young—very young. She is a mere child."

"She is old enough, I presume, to know right from wrong."

"She is the youngest creature I know," persists Margaret, in her sweet angelic way, that is all charity, all kindness and all forbearance. "And what a little fairy of a thing! A man should have patience with her. Have patience, Maurice."

"Oh! All you women support each other," says he, frowning. "You wish me to believe that because Nature has built her in a smaller mould than other women, I should therefore condone her faults."

"Such pretty faults," says Margaret. "A little hot temper, a little sauciness, a little petulance—what more?"

Rylton's lip curls.

"If you are such a devotee at her shrine as all that comes to, there is nothing more to be said. Her flirtation with her cousin——"

"Was it a flirtation?"

"There are new names for things every day. Give it the new name and be done with it."

"There can be no new name for a mere imagination. I don't believe she ever had any—any love affair with Mr. Hescott. I don't really, and," boldly, "in your heart I don't think you believe it either. No, don't turn away, don't. It is for your sake I speak, because I have always your interest at heart; Maurice, I entreat you to pause, to think. Is all the fault on Tita's side? Have you loved her as she should be loved?—that little, quick, enthusiastic creature. Where has your heart been since your marriage!"

"You go very far," says Rylton, pale, cold.

"I know; I know. And I am only a cousin, a mere nobody. But I love the child, and I must speak. You will hate me for it, perhaps, but why has Marian been here?"

"Tita asked her."

"Is that the whole truth?"

"No; the half," says Sir Maurice. He rouses himself from the lethargy into which he has fallen, and looks at Margaret. "I promised Marian an invitation here; I asked Tita for that invitation later. Marian came. I believed there would be harm in her coming, and I steeled myself against it. I tell you, Margaret—I tell you, and you only—that when she came the harm—was—well"—straightening himself—"there was no harm. All at once I found I did not care. My love for her seemed dead. It was terrible, but it was the fact; I seemed to care for nothing—nothing at all. Margaret, believe me, it was all dead. I tell you this, that the night when I discovered that, I longed for death as a solution of my misery. To care for nothing—nothing!"

"There was something," says Margaret. "There was Tita!"

"Was there?"

"Certainly there was."

"She has proved it," says Rylton, breaking into a sort of heart-broken mirth.

"She is angry now," says Margaret eagerly. "She is very naturally—unhinged; and she has been told——"

"By my mother?"

"Yes. That was unfortunate. She—Tessie—your mother," hastily, "should not have told her."

"After all, I'm glad she did," says Rylton warmly. "What does it matter? And, at all events, it makes the thing clear to Tita. It is quite as well that she should know that I was a cur of the worst description when I asked her to marry me."

"You were never that," says his cousin, tears rising in her eyes. "You have been wrong in many ways, but I still believe in you, and I think that when you married Tita you meant to be true to her."

"I did, God knows!" says he. "It was the least I could do, considering how I had taken advantage of her. But she——"

"Well?" says Margaret.

"Hescott——"

"Oh, Maurice, don't! Don't be unjust over that. I tell you there was nothing in that. The poor child has been foolish, faulty, absurd, in many ways, but daylight is not sweeter or more pure. I tell you this as my last word. And, Maurice, in time—in a month or so—come and see us——"

"Us? Her? No!"

"Come and see me, then. I shall be, as you know, in town. Do come."

"Well, let me know first that she won't be there."

"I shall arrange for you not to see her, if you wish that," says Margaret, deeply grieved in her kind spirit. "But I hope that in time——"

"If you are hoping that Tita and I shall ever make it up again, you are the most hopeful person alive," says he. "No—I tell you plainly—I shall go to see you when she is away, never when she is with you."

"But why? You certainly can't believe she has any tendresse for Mr. Hescott."

"Why should I not believe it?" gloomily.

"Why should you? Dear Maurice, be sensible. I know that Tita cares nothing for him."

"How? Has she told you?"

"Not told me. But one can see."

"So can another one." He throws up his head suddenly, as if tired and altogether done. "There! I give it up," says he. "I have married an enigma, apparently, and my blood must be on my own head."

"You have married one of the sweetest girls on earth," says Margaret indignantly, stung by his nonchalant demeanour. "You are unworthy of her—you are not capable of understanding her." Rylton shrugs his shoulders. "In time—in time," says the gentle Margaret, now all aglow with anger, "you will learn her worth; but as it is——"

She moves towards the door. Rylton hurries to open it for her.

"I may come and see you?" asks he.

"If you will, but I shall certainly not send Tita out of the way to oblige you."

"Well, I shall take my chance."

"It is in your own hands."

Margaret sweeps past him. She is at this moment nearly as angry with him as Tita is.



CHAPTER XIX.

HOW MARGARET AND TITA TREAD MANY PATHS; AND HOW FORTUNE, HAVING TURNED HER BACK ON TITA, SHOWS A SMILING FRONT TO MAURICE.



It is six months later, and now fair May has come to us on young and eager feet. On young feet barely born, and with a smile so slight that one dare hardly call it sunshine. At this moment a little gleam of it, just strong enough to make one dream of summer, but not enough to warm one, is stealing timidly though the windows of Margaret's smaller drawing-room in Park Lane.

She had taken Tita abroad almost immediately after the rupture at Oakdean, explaining to their mutual friends that it was necessary for Tita's health that she should winter in the south. An explanation received face to face with delicate appreciation and warm sympathy, and much laughed over later on. Poor old Margaret! As if one didn't know! As if one couldn't see! That cousin, you know! He was—he really was far too good-looking. And then this sudden loss of fortune! After all, these unequal marriages never do. Rylton plainly was tired of her, and when the money went—well, then Margaret took her off his hands. Of course Margaret was better than the cousin—more respectable. This brilliant bit of wit was received with much soft smothered mirth. But as for Rylton—he certainly had not come well out of it. A fellow should stick to his bargain, any way. He had married her for her money, and that gone, had shaken himself free. It was certainly playing it a little low down. By the way, wouldn't Mrs. Bethune be singing hymns over it all! Such a downfall to her rival! There was a good deal of gossip about it, here and there.

Mrs. Chichester, who has a heart somewhere in her lean, frivolous body, had come all the way up from Devonshire, where she was then falsely beguiling a most unlucky young curate, to see Margaret, on the latter's way through town, and express her sorrow for Tita. She had honestly liked Tita, and she said to Margaret many kindly things about her. So many, and so kindly indeed, that Margaret almost forgave her that reprehensible flirtation with Captain Marryatt. But then Margaret, at that time, knew nothing of the luckless curate!

The greatest surprise of all, however, came from old Miss Gower. Popularly she had been supposed to hate Tita, and resent her marriage with Rylton, who was a relative of hers; but five days after the fiasco, as Randal called it, Rylton had a letter from her that somewhat startled him. It was extremely abusive, and rather involved; but the meaning of it was that he ought to be ashamed of himself, and that Tita was too good for him. She wound up with a few very rude remarks directed at Mrs. Bethune, and a hope that Tita would stick to her determination to cast off the tyrant—Man (the capital was enormous), as personified by Maurice.

Rylton wasn't in the least annoyed by this letter; indeed, it somewhat puzzled him to find that he rather liked it, and he put it away in his private drawer, amongst the papers he cared for.

Margaret had taken Tita to Rome, and thence to Constantinople. She had kept her moving about from place to place, hoping to clear her mind of all past deadly thoughts by constant change. She had a hope that by breaking off all old associations, the girl might come to think of the past—and Maurice—in a more gentle, lenient light, and thus be prepared for a reconciliation in the future. To Margaret it seemed terrible that these two young people should be for ever apart—their lives ruined, their social position smirched.

A long separation from her own country—her own circle—might lead Tita to desire a return to it—a return to her husband and her home.

Alas! not to the old home, however. She might desire a return to that with all her soul, yet nothing would come of it. It was gone! Gone past recall! When Tita's affairs were wound up, it was found that all should be sold, not only her other two houses, but the old home—the one beloved of her childhood. Oakdean came to the hammer a month ago!

Indeed, out of all her large fortune only a bare 300 a year was saved for the poor little heiress of yesterday! When Tita was assured that even this small sum was honourably hers, she had insisted on her lawyers writing and offering half of it to Maurice—an offer I need hardly say refused. Maurice declined, naturally, but, unfortunately, very rudely, to touch a penny of hers.

So far Tita was protected from actual poverty—poverty was much closer to Maurice at this time than to her; and, indeed, being with Margaret, who loved her from her heart, and would hear no word of her leaving her, hardly felt the change in her position. The loss of the old home—of Oakdean—had been, so far as Margaret could see, the one thing that had deeply affected her. Of Maurice she would hardly talk at all, but of Oakdean she would talk by the hour.

The wheels of law grind slowly, and it was not until last month that the actual sale of her beautiful home took place. The news came to her when she and Margaret were at Berne on their homeward way, and she had quite broken down. She had cried terribly over it night and day—so much, indeed, that Margaret, who had been astonished at her strength of mind over her loss of fortune, now began to regard her as devoid of it altogether. For days and days she fretted, eating scarcely anything, caring for nothing. It was when Margaret was almost in despair about her that she grew better, and let herself be amused by the ordinary occurrences of the day.

As for Rylton, these past six months had been the fullest of his life. Time had made him his shuttlecock. Fortune had played with him. It had caught him when he was up in the world and flung him to the ground, and after that had seized him afresh, and sent him flying to a higher altitude than he had ever known before. As a fact, three months had not elapsed after his parting with his wife when his uncle (a comparatively young man) had died of typhoid fever, leaving him all his property.

It seemed the very irony of fate. A year ago, if he had had this money, he would not have even seen Tita. The marriage was an arrangement of his mother's, and now that he has got this money, of what good is it to him? His wife is gone, yet he still is wedded. The first sense of comfort he got from his newly-acquired fortune was the thought that he could now give Tita some of it.

But Tita would none of it! The very fact that their cases had been so suddenly and so marvellously reversed made her the more strong in her determination to spurn any gift from him. She was now sitting on the lowest rung of Fortune's ladder, whilst he stood at the top; but, for all that, she would take nothing from him. Rylton wrote to Margaret, who scolded Tita vigorously to no end; and so the matter stood. The first instalment of a very magnificent allowance was paid into Tita's bank, and rested there untouched, doing no good to anybody.

"It is senseless! As his wife, you are entitled to some of his money. It is not a gift," said Margaret angrily.

But Tita had laughed, and tore his letter to Margaret in two.

"He wouldn't take my small gift," said she, alluding to that offer of hers of the half of her tiny income. "And now it does me good to be able to refuse his big one."

"But it isn't a gift; it is your right," Margaret urged again; but all in vain.

Now they are back once more in England. Ten days ago they arrived, and are this morning in Margaret's pretty room that is half filled with growing plants, moving about from this flower to that, and feeling unconsciously little thrills of delight in the fresh sweetness of the morning.

"Spring goeth all in white, Crowned with milk-white May; In fleecy flocks of light, O'er heaven the white clouds stray.

"White butterflies in the air, White daisies prank the ground; The cherry and the hoary pear Scatter their snow around."

Well, there are no cherry-trees or hoary pear-trees here, but the perfume of the delicate lilac comes to them from the Park, telling them that spring is reigning, even in this dusty old city, with a right royal gaiety.

Twice during these ten days Rylton has called, always asking scrupulously for Margaret; and Margaret only has he seen. Hescott had called once, but Tita would not see him either, and poor Margaret had a rather dreadful interview with him. He had offered her in a frantic, foolish moment, half of all he was worth to be given from him to Tita, and Margaret had a good deal of difficulty in explaining to him that Tita, in reality, was as well off as any young woman need be. Margaret even exaggerated somewhat, and told him that she had a large sum lying idle in a bank—as indeed she had, considering Rylton paid in his princely allowance to her, with determined punctuality, every month, in spite of his knowledge of the fact that she would not touch it. Margaret suffered a good deal through Hescott, and was devoutly grateful when she learned the morning after his visit to her that he had started for a prolonged tour in South Africa. She learned this from himself in a somewhat incoherent letter, and a paragraph in the papers the day after set her mind at rest. Margaret was a Christian, or she might have found consolation in the thought that there are lions in South Africa!

She watched Tita anxiously for a day or two after this, but could not see that the girl was distressed at Tom's departure. She talked of him, indeed, very freely—always a good sign.



* * * * *



"Tita, do you hear the birds?" says Margaret, in quite a little excited way. "Come here to this window. How they sing!"

"Don't they!" says Tita rapturously.

Her face lights up, but presently she looks a little sad.

"It makes you long for the country?" asks Margaret gently, looking at her without seeming to do so.

"No," says Tita, shaking her head resolutely; and then: "Yes—yes. But I shall always hate to go to it now—now that the dear old home is gone."

"I wish I had been able to buy it!" says Margaret regretfully.

"Oh, Meg, don't go on like that! You—you who have been everything to me!"

"I wasn't rich enough," says Margaret ruefully; "and, at all events, I wasn't in time. I confess now I sold out some shares a little time ago with a view to getting it, but I was too late; it was bought—a private sale, they said."

"There is nothing I can say—nothing," says Tita, tears dimming her eyes. "Why are you so good to me? Oh, Meg! there is one, one thing—I love you, and love you, and love you!" She slips her soft arms round Margaret's neck, and presses her cheek to hers. There is moisture on Margaret's face when this little burst of gratitude has been accomplished. "I never loved anyone as I love you," says Tita.

"There is someone else you ought to love better, Tita."

"There is someone else I hate," returns Tita, with really astonishing promptitude.

"Well, about Oakdean," says Margaret quickly, appalled by this outbreak of wrath.

"There is nothing about it; it is gone," says Tita, in a forlorn sort of way; then: "I wonder who bought it?"

"I don't know. I asked, but I could not find out. Some rich merchant, no doubt."

"Well," sighing, "a rich merchant bought it before—my poor father—and to a rich merchant it has gone. That is as it should be. Still, it was so pretty, so lovely, so homelike, that I wish——"

"What, darling?"

"That it had been burnt to the ground before anyone else got it," breaks out Tita, in a little storm of grief and despair.

"Yes, I know; I can feel with you," says Margaret, pressing her back into a chair, and hovering over her with loving touches and tender words. "But, after all, Tita, one has to give up things daily. It is life. Life is one long surrender."

"My surrender has been done in a bundle," says Tita indignantly. "Other people do their surrenders by degrees, year after year; but in one year I have lost everything—my home, my money, my husband."

Margaret notes with fear that she has put her husband last in the list of her losses.

"Not that I care a fig about Maurice," continues Tita, with a tilt of her chin that would have made any man admire her. "I was delighted to get rid of him." Then, glancing at Margaret, she flings her arms round her neck again. "No; don't look at me like that. I'm a wretch. But really, Margaret, you know that Maurice was a wretch, too!"

"Well, well!" says Margaret sadly. "It seems useless to defend Maurice—you know how sorry I am for you always," she goes on gently. "To come from riches to poverty is one of the worst things the word offers; but to be very rich is not well, Tita. It clogs the mind; it takes one away from the very meaning of life. Money hardens the soul; it keeps one away from touch with the inner circle of humanity—from the misery, the sorrow, the vice! It is bad to be too rich."

"Yet you are rich, Margaret!"

"Yet—yes; and it frightens me," says she, in a low tone.

Tita rubs her cheek softly against hers.

"Yet you are not far from the kingdom of God!" says she.

The little kittenish gesture and the solemn phrase! Margaret presses Tita to her. What a strange child she is! What a mixture!

"Neither are you, I trust," says she.

"So you see riches have got nothing to do with it," says Tita, breaking into a gay, irresistible little laugh.

Miss Knollys laughs too, in spite of herself, and then grows suddenly very grave. There is something she must say to Tita.



CHAPTER XX.

HOW MARGARET STARTS AS A SPECIAL PLEADER, AND IS MUCH WORSTED IN HER ARGUMENT; AND HOW A SIMPLE KNOCK AT THE HALL DOOR SCATTERS ONE BEING WHO DELIGHTS IN WAR.



"I think you ought to see your husband," says Margaret.

It is a bombshell! Tita withdraws her arms from round Margaret's neck and looks at her like one seeing her for the first time. It is plain to Margaret that she is very angry.

Poor Margaret! She feels torn in twain. Rylton, as has been said, had called twice during the past ten days, but on neither of those occasions had seen Tita. Tita, indeed, had obstinately refused to come downstairs, even though Margaret had gone up to fetch her. Margaret had not forgotten that occasion. She had found the girl in her room.

"Never, never, never!" said Tita, in answer to all her entreaties, who had screwed herself into the farthest corner of her room between a wardrobe and a table—a most uncomfortable position, but one possessed of certain advantages. It would be difficult, for example, to dislodge her from it. And she gave Margaret the impression, as she entered the room, that she thought force was about to be resorted to.

"It is your duty to come downstairs and see him," Margaret had said.

She always brought in poor Duty, who certainly must have been fagged to death at that time.

"I hate him!" said Tita rebelliously, and now with increased venom, as she saw that Margaret only had come to the assault. "Go down and tell him that."

"This is dreadful," said poor Margaret, going to the door.

But even now the little miscreant wedged in between the furniture was not satisfied.

"Tell him I hope I'll never see him again!" said she, calling it out loudly as though afraid Margaret might not hear and deliver her words.

"I shall certainly deliver no such message," said the latter, pausing on the threshold and waxing wroth. Even the worm will turn, they say, though I confess I never saw one that did. "You can tell him that yourself, some day, when you see him!"

But this parting shaft had only made Tita laugh. "See him! She would die first!"

Margaret had gone down with a modified edition of this rencontre to Rylton, and Rylton had shrugged his shoulders. He could not disguise from Margaret the fact, however, that he was chagrined. He had seen through the modifying, of course, and had laughed—not very merrily—and told Margaret not to ruin her conscience on his account. He had lived with Tita long enough to know the sort of message she would be sure to send.

Margaret mumbled something after that, never very clear to either of them, and Rylton had gone on to say that he was going down to the country for a month. He was starting on Monday next. He had said all that on Thursday, and this is Tuesday. There is a sense of relief, yet of regret, in Margaret's heart as she tells herself that he is well out of town. But now, certainly, is the time to work on Tita's sense of right and wrong. Rylton will come back at the end of the month, and when he does, surely—surely his wife should be willing to, at all events, receive him as a friend. The gossip surrounding these two people, so dear to her, is distressing to Margaret, and she would gladly have put an end to it. The whole thing, too, is so useless, so senseless. And as for that affair of Marian's Bethune's—she has no belief in that. It has blown over—is dead. Killed—by time.

"See him?" says Tita at last, stammering.

"Yes, when he comes back. You have a month to think about it. He has gone to the country."

"A very good thing too," says Tita, with a shrug of her shoulders. "I hope he will stay there."

"But he won't," says Margaret in despair. "He returns to town in June. Tita, I hope—I do hope you will be sensible, and consent to see him then."

"Does he want to see me?" asks Tita.

Here Margaret is posed. Rylton had certainly known, that day she had gone up to Tita's room to bring her down, what her errand was, but he had not asked her to go upon it. He had expressed no desire, had shown no wish for a meeting with his wife.

"My dear—I——"

"Ah, you make a bad liar, Meg!" says Tita; "you ought to throw up the appointment. You aren't earning your salary honestly. And, besides, it doesn't matter. Even if he were dying to see me, I should still rather die than see him."

"That is not a right spirit, to——"

"I expect my spirit is as right as his," says Tita rebelliously, "and," with a sudden burst of indignation that does away with all sense of her duty to her language, "a thousand times righter for the matter of that. No, Margaret! No—no—no! I will not see him. Do you think I ever forget——"

"I had hoped, dearest, that——"

"It is useless to hope. What woman would forgive it? I knew he married me without loving me. That was all fair! He told me that. What he did not tell me was the vital thing—that he loved someone else."

"You should never have married him when he told you he did not love you."

"Why not?" warmly. "I knew nothing of love; I thought he knew nothing of it either. Love seemed to me a stupid sort of thing (it seems so still). I said to myself that a nice strong friendship would be sufficient for me——"

"Well?"

"Well, so it would—only he felt no friendship. He felt nothing but his love for that odious woman! I couldn't stand that."

"You stood it for a long time, Tita—if it ever existed."

"Yes; I know. I didn't seem to care much at first, but when he grew rude to me about Tom—— Well, I knew what that meant."

"If you knew, you should have kept your cousin at a greater distance."

"Nonsense, Margaret! what do you mean by that?" Tita has turned a pair of lustrous eyes upon her—eyes lit by the fire of battle—not battle with Margaret, however, but with memory. "You honestly think that he believed I was in love with Tom?"

"I do. And I think he was jealous."

Tita bursts out laughing. There is little music in her mirth.

"And now I'll tell you what I think. That he was glad to pretend to believe I was in love with Tom, because he hoped to get rid of me, and after that to marry his cousin."

"Tita! I shall not listen to you if you say such things. How dare you even think them? Maurice is incapable of such a design."

"In my opinion, he is capable of anything," retorts Maurice's wife, without a trace of repentance. She looks long at Margaret, and then dropping gracefully upon a pouf at Margaret's feet, says sweetly, "He's a beast!"

"Oh, Tita! I don't know why I love you," says Margaret, with terrible reproach.

At this Tita springs to her feet, and flings her arms round Miss Knollys. Presently she leans back and looks at her again, still, however, holding her with her arms. Her small face, so woeful a while ago, is now wreathed in smiles; it even suggests itself to Margaret that she is with difficulty suppressing a wild outbreak of mirth—a suppression meant, no doubt, as a concession to Margaret's feelings.

"I'll tell you," whispers she. "You love me because you would be the most ungrateful wretch on earth unless you did. You give me some of your love; I give you all mine. I have no one else."

"That is your own fault," says Margaret, still trying to scold her, actually believing she is doing it, whilst with her eyes and mouth she is smiling at her.

"Not another word, not one," says Tita. "And promise me you won't ask me to see him again. I hate him! He sets my nerves on edge. I think he is actually ugly."

"I think you must have forgotten what he is like by this time."

"No, I don't. One doesn't forget a nightmare in a hurry."

"Tita, really——"

"There! I'll be good. I'll consign him to the lowest depths and never dig him up again. And so he has left town? What a blessed relief! Now I can go out and enjoy myself. Let us go out, Meg! Let us——what's that?"

She stands transfixed in the middle of the room, Margaret opposite her. Both seem stricken into marble.

A knock at the door, loud, sharp, resounding—a knock well known to both.

"And you said he was gone to the country," says Tita, in a low whisper filled with deepest suspicions.

"He said so. I believed it. It must be a mistake," says Margaret. "He certainly said so."

They have lost some moments over their fear and astonishment. The sound of a rapidly approaching footstep, quite as well known to them as the knock, rouses both to a sense of desperation.

"What on earth shall I do?" says Tita, who is now as white as a sheet.

"Stay and see him," says Margaret, with sudden inspiration.

"Stay! Do you think I should stay for one moment in the room with him? No! I shall go in there," pointing to the next room that opens out of this with folding-doors, "and wait until he goes away."

She has hardly time to reach this seclusion when the door is thrown wide, and Sir Maurice is announced.

"Nobody with you?" says he, glancing somewhat expectantly around him. "I fancied I heard someone. So glad to find you alone!"

"Yes—yes—perhaps it is better," says Margaret vaguely, absently, thinking always of the little firebrand in that room beyond, but so near, so fatally near.

"Better? You mean——"

"Well, I mean that Tita has only just left the room," says Margaret desperately.

"She—is in there, then?" pointing towards the folding-doors.

"Yes. Do speak low. You know she—I can't disguise from you, Maurice, that she——"

Margaret hesitates.

"Hates me? I'm quite aware of that." A long pause. "She is well, I hope?" frigidly.

"I think so. She looks well, lovely indeed—a little pale, perhaps. Maurice," leaning across and whispering cautiously, "why don't you try to make a reconciliation of some sort? A beginning might lead to the happiest results, and I am sure you do care for her—and—do try and make up with her."

"You must be out of your mind!" says Maurice, springing to his feet, and to poor Margaret's abject fear speaking at the top of his lungs. "With her, when she deliberately deserted me of her own accord—when——"

"Oh, hush, hush!" says Margaret in an agony. She makes wild signs to him, pointing towards the closed doors as she does so. A nice girl, we all know, would rather die than put her ear to a keyhole, even if by doing so she could save her neck from the scaffold; but the very best of girls might by chance be leaning against a door through the chinks of which sounds might enter from the room beyond it. "She'll hear you!" gasps Margaret.

"I don't care if she does," says Maurice indignantly, but he calms down for all that, and consents to sit in a chair as far from the folding-doors as possible. "You have misjudged me all through," says he.

"I think not—I hope not. But I will say, Maurice, that I think you began your marriage badly, and—you should not have——"

"Have what?"

"Asked Marian to stay with you."

"That was"—gloomily—"a mistake. I admit that. But have I nothing to complain of?"

"Nothing, I honestly believe."

Her tone is so honest (Margaret herself is so sweetly honest all through) that he remains silent for a moment. It is, however, a constrained silence. The knowledge that Tita is standing or sitting, laughing or frowning, behind those boards over there, disturbs him in spite of himself.

"Well, I have often thought that, too," says he, "and yet I have often thought—the other thing. At all events, you cannot deny that he was in love with her."

"Why should I deny that? To me"—with a reproachful glance at him—"she seems like one with whom many might be in love."

"Oh, you are a partisan!" says he irritably, rising abruptly, and preparing to pace the room.

Margaret catches his coat as he goes by her.

"I entreat, I implore you to be quiet. It is so slight a partition," says she. "Do sit down like a dear boy and talk softly, unless"—wistfully and evidently hopefully—"you want to go away."

"Well, I don't," says he grimly.

He reseats himself. An extraordinary fascination keeps him in this room, even in face of the fact that the mistress of it is plainly longing for his departure. She has even openly hinted at it. And the fascination? It lies there behind the folding-doors. There is no romance in it, he tells himself; it is rather the feeling of an enemy who knows his foe to be close by. He turns to Margaret.

"Why did she refuse that money?"

"Why did you refuse hers?"

"Pshaw! You're evading the question. To take half of her little pittance! I wonder you can even suggest the thing. It—it is almost an insult," says he, reddening to his brows.

"I didn't mean it," says Margaret quickly, the more so that she thinks he is going to walk the room again. "Of course you could not have taken it."

"And yet I did take her money," says he miserably; "I wish to heaven now I hadn't. Then it seemed a fair exchange—her money for my title; it is done every day, and no one thinks anything of it—but now—— It was a most cursed thing," says he.

"It would have been nothing—nothing," says Margaret eagerly, "if you had been heart-whole. But to marry her, loving another, that was wrong—unpardonable——"

"Unpardonable!" He looks at her with a start. What does she mean? Is he beyond pardon, indeed? Pardon from—— "That's all over," says he.

"It wasn't over then!"

"I don't know——" He gets up and walks to the window in an agitated fashion, and then back again. "Margaret, I don't believe I ever loved her."

Margaret stares at him.

"You are talking of Marian?"

"Yes; Marian. If I did love her, then there is no such thing as love—love the eternal—because I love her no longer."

"It is not that," says Margaret; "but love can be killed. Poor love!" she sighed. "Marian of her own accord has killed yours."

There is a long pause; then: "Well, I'm glad of it," says he.

He lifts his arms high above his head, as a man might who yawns, or a man might who has all at once recognised that he is rid of a great encumbrance.

"I suppose you did not come here to discuss your love affairs with Marian," says Margaret, a little coldly.

In a strange sort of way she had liked Marian, and she knew that Marian, in a strange sort of way, clung to her. And, besides, to say love could be killed! It was tantamount to saying love could die! Has her love died? Colonel Neilson had been with her a good deal since her return to town, and there had been moments of heart-burning, when she had searched her heart indeed, and found it wanting—wanting in its fixed determination to be true for ever to the dear dead beloved. And such a miserable wanting, a mere craving to be as others are—to live in the life of another, to know the warmth, the breath of the world's sunshine—to love, and be loved again.

No wonder Margaret is angry with Rylton for bringing all these delinquencies into the light of certainty.

"No," says Sir Maurice moodily. "I came here to see you."

"You told me you intended leaving town yesterday."

"Yes, I know. I meant it. But I've changed my mind about stopping in the country—at least, I'm running down to The Place for the night to see after some business with the agent, but I'll be back to-morrow."

"Really, you must forgive me if I say I don't think much of your mind," says Margaret, who is still a little sore over her own reflections.

"I don't think much of it myself," says Rylton, with increasing gloom.

At this abject surrender Margaret's tender heart relents.

"I believe all you have told me," says she; "and I suppose I'm glad of it, although—Well, never mind that. Marian deserves no pity, but still——"

"Pshaw!" says he. "What has Marian got to do with it? Marian never cared that about me." He makes an expressive movement with his fingers—a little snap. "I know now that Marian only played with me. I amused her. I was the plaything of an hour."

"You wrong her there, Maurice."

"Do I? How? They tell us"—with a bitter smile—"that if a woman loves a man she will cling to him through all things—poverty, ill-repute, even crime. But poverty, the least of these things, daunted her."

"She had known so much poverty——"

"Are you pleading her cause now?" says Maurice, with a slight smile. "You plead it badly. The very fact of her knowing it so well should not have deterred her from trying it again with the man she loved. I offered to throw up everything for her, to go abroad, to work, to wrestle with fortune for her sake, but she——" He stops, and draws a long breath. "Well, it is over," says he.

"That is. But your future life——"

"I'm not a favourite of gods, am I?" says he, laughing. "My future life! Well, I leave it to them. So Tita is looking well?"

"Yes; quite well. A little pale, I said."

"She never had much colour. She never speaks of me, I suppose?"

"Sometimes—yes."

Rylton looks down at the carpet, and then laughs a little awkwardly.

"I expect I had better not inquire into it," says he. "It is a general remark, yet it is all question."

"Of course, she remembers things," says Margaret nervously.

If he were to make another scene, to prance up and down the room, and talk at the top of his lungs, there is no knowing what may not happen, considering who is standing behind those folding-doors.

"We can all remember things," says Sir Maurice, rising and holding out his hand. He bids her good-bye. As he gets to the door he looks back. "Tell her I didn't like to keep her in durance vile longer than was necessary," says he.

With this parting shot, he goes down the stairs and out of the house.



CHAPTER XXI.

HOW MARGARET MAKES A FEARFUL DISCOVERY; HOW SHE RUSHES TO THE RESCUE, BUT IS FAR FROM WELL RECEIVED; AND HOW TITA GIVES HERSELF AWAY, NOT ONCE, BUT TWICE.



Margaret, with a keen sense of relief, goes to the folding-doors, opens them cautiously, and looks in. A distinctly cold and cutting air greets her; she is aware at once that she is standing in a thorough draught. And where is Tita?

Good gracious! where can she have gone to? There is no exit from this room save through the next, where she and Rylton have been sitting—except by the chimney, or through one of the windows. For one awful moment it occurs to Miss Knollys that Tita might have flung herself out of a window.

She glances hurriedly to the window nearest her, and then sees something that makes her heart stand still.

Are those Tita's heels?

Margaret's mind is full of suicidal fears. She steps cautiously towards the open window—the window through which Tita's body is now flung. Tita's feet alone are in the room! Tita herself is suspended between heaven and earth, like Mahomet's coffin!

"Tita! what are you doing?" cries Margaret, laying a sudden hand upon the white sash that is encircling Lady Rylton's waist.

At this, the latter scrambles back into a more respectable position, and stares at Margaret with angry, shamed eyes, and cheeks like a "red, red rose."

"Good gracious!" says she. "Why, you very nearly threw me out of the window."

Now, this is so manifestly unfair that Margaret feels resentment. What had her action been? She had dragged Tita backwards into the room; she had not pushed her out, as the latter seemed to suggest.

"I quite thought you were trying to throw yourself out of the window," says Margaret, with emphasis. "What have you been doing?"

"Nothing—nothing," declares Tita airily, hurriedly. "The day is so lovely—you remember we were talking about it a while ago. I was—er—listening to the birds."

"Surely one need not hang one's self out of a window to listen to them," says Miss Knollys. "Why don't you confess the truth? You were looking at Maurice."

"Well, if you will have it," says Tita resentfully, "I was! I was curious to see if he was as ill-tempered looking as ever. I was foiled, however; I saw nothing but the back of his odious head."

"What a disappointment!" says Margaret, laughing with an irrepressible if rather unkind mirth.

"I dare say I shall get over it," coldly, with a distrustful glance at Margaret. "Well—how is he looking?"

At this Margaret laughs again.

"That was just what he asked about you!"

"About me!" frowning. "Fancy his asking anything about me! Well, and you said I was looking——"

"Lovely, but a little pale, as if you were pining."

"Margaret, you did not say that!"

"My dear child, of course I did. I am not sure about the pining, but I certainly said you looked pale. So you do. You couldn't expect me to tell a lie about it."

"I could indeed. I," with deep reproach, "would have told a dozen lies for you in a minute."

"Well, I don't want you to," says Miss Knollys. "By-the-bye, he is not going out of town, after all."

"No?" with studied indifference. "Then I suppose we may expect to hear that Mrs. Bethune will be in town shortly?"

"I really do think, Tita, that you ought to refrain from speeches like that. They are unworthy of you, and they are not true. Whatever infatuation Maurice felt for Marian Bethune in the past, lies in the past. Only to-day he told me——"

"Told you?"

Tita leans eagerly forward.

"That if he ever had loved her—and he seemed now to doubt that—he loved her no longer."

"Just shows how fickle he is," says Tita, with supreme scorn.

"Of course, if you are determined to misjudge him in every way——"

"It is he who misjudges me!" She gets up and walks impatiently from Margaret to the window and back again. "How could he say I deliberately deserted him?"

Margaret looks at her. It suddenly occurs to her what a blessed thought that was of hers to take him out of hearing to the far end of the room.

"You heard that, then?"

Tita starts and turns crimson.

"Oh, that!" stammers she. "Well, I—I couldn't help it. I was near the door, and he spoke very loudly, and——"

"And you heard," says Margaret, suppressing some amusement. "Quite so. Well, you did leave him, you see."

"Not until he drove me to it by his cruelty, his wicked suspicions. You know that, Margaret."

"Oh! I know he behaved like a stupid boy," says Margaret impatiently.

"Ah, darling Meg! I knew you would take my part."

"And you," mercilessly, "behaved like a silly baby."

Tita flings herself into a chair with a petulant gesture.

"He has won you over to his side. I knew, when he took you down to the end of the room, where I could hear nothing, that he was going to poison your mind against me."

Miss Knollys gives way once more to ill-timed mirth.

"So you were looking, too?" says she.

"I—no. Oh no. I—I only"—growing crimson—"wanted to see whether you were safe. You had stopped talking, and I know how violent he can be, and," with a gasp, "I just looked once to see that you were alive."

"Tita," says Miss Knollys solemnly, "when I want those dozen lies told for me in a minute, I shan't ask you to tell them."



CHAPTER XXII.

HOW MAURICE SMOKES A CIGAR, AND MUSES ON MANY THINGS; HOW HE LAMENTS HIS SOLITUDE; AND HOW AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR COMES TO HIM.



"It is the mynd that maketh good or ill," says the old poet. Sir Maurice, sitting here in the library at The Place, feels his "mynd" far from happy. He has finished his business with the agent, and now there lies before him a long, dull evening in which to think on many things.

He is comfortable enough. His mother is well away, somewhere in Essex, and so he has the house to himself. The fire is burning very nicely—these May evenings are often chilly—and the cigar he is smoking is excellent. The dinner has been excellent, too. Astonishing, considering the shortness of the notice and what servants are. And yet—yet he feels dull to the last degree.

Over and over again his mind runs back to his morning's interview with Margaret. He would have stifled such returns, but they are beyond him. His brain insists on making photographs of Margaret's drawing-room, with its screens here and its pots there, and the tall jar filled with the sweet-scented flowers of early summer. The photographs go farther than that, too. One prominent object in all of them are the folding-doors at the end of the room.

It seems to him, as he angrily flicks the ash off the end of his cigar, that he had seen nothing but those folding-doors. His eyes had been riveted upon them. He—it was absurd, of course—but he had in a way seen through them—seen her—that little faithless, stormy child, who is playing the very mischief with his life.

"Ask not her name; The light winds whisper it on every hand."

That is the worst of it! Rylton gets up, and begins to pace the room. Her name—her face—— He cannot get rid of them. They seem to haunt him! And what has he done that she should so deride and scorn him? Say he was in fault about Marian Bethune. Well, he was—grossly in fault, if you like, so far as his having kept silence about his love for her before his marriage. But afterwards! He had little or nothing to reproach himself with afterwards. His married life had been blameless so far as Marian had been concerned. He had often wondered, indeed, about that—about that strange coldness he had felt when she had come to stay with them—with Tita and him. He had looked forward to her coming, and when she came—it was a sort of blank! At the time he hated himself for it, but it was not to be overcome. However, it was Marian's own doing. That last time when she had refused him, he had understood her. Love with her took a second place. Money held the reins.

Up and down, up and down the room he goes, smoking and thinking.

"She Whom the gods love—tranquillity—"

is far from him to-night. Why had Tita run away when he went in? Margaret had told him plainly that she would not see him; she had almost allowed that she hated him, and certainly her whole conduct points that way. What is to be the end of it, then? Is he to be bound to her, and she to him, until kindly Death drops in to release them one from the other? And never a word between them all the time! It sounds ghastly! He flings his cigar into the fire, and, seating himself on the edge or the table, gives himself up a prey to evil prognostications.

His thoughts wander, but always they come back to those folding-doors, and the possible vision behind them.

Such a tender vision! Half child, half woman, wholly sweet, yet a little tyrant in her own way. The vision behind the folding-doors grows brighter. A little thing, slender, beautiful, with such bright, earnest eyes, and her lips just smiling and apart, and the soft rings of hair lying on the white forehead. Behind those doors—were the eyes glad, or angry, as they so often were—with him? With Margaret, no doubt, they were always bright. She loved Margaret, but him she never loved. Why should she? Had he loved her?

It is a terrible question, and all in a moment the answer to it comes to him—an answer almost as terrible. He had thought of it, trifled with it, played with it, this question. But now he knows! Yes, he does love her. Her, and her only.

He is still sitting at the table thinking. His head is bent a little down, his hands are resting on the table behind him. Will she ever forgive or forget?

"My love is like the sea, As changeful and as free; Sometimes she's angry, sometimes rough, Yet oft she's smooth and calm enough— Ay, much too calm for me!"

The pretty words come to him as if describing her; "sometimes she's angry": with him she had been often angry, but now, looking back on it, what sweetest anger it had been, anger that cried aloud for tender arms in which to sink and lose itself for ever. Oh, if only—only—she would be angry with him once again, he might so argue with her that she would forgive him, and, perhaps, take him, worthless as he is, to that warm heart of hers.

Mechanically he slips from the table to a standing position. He will be in town to-morrow. He will make one last effort to see her. Margaret will aid him, and, after all, what is there to separate them? Hescott is in South Africa (there was nothing in that really—he had made an ass of himself over that, more or less). And Marian Bethune? Well, Tita must know by this time that that old folly is at an end for ever—even Marian herself has tired of it.

He turns slowly; the door has opened behind him. The lamp is a little low, and he has to look closely into the gloom at the end of the room to see who has come in. One of the servants, no doubt. He looks again.

"The post, Peter?" says he expectantly. But it is not Peter who comes forward.

"Maurice!" says Marian Bethune, in a tone that is barely above a whisper.

She is with him now, her hands upon his arms, her eyes riveted upon his.



CHAPTER XXIII.

HOW RYLTON'S EVIL GENIUS COMES TO HIM AND SPEAKS SWEET TREACHERIES WITHIN HIS EAR; AND HOW HE RENOUNCES HER AND ALL HER DEEDS.



"You!" says Rylton. His voice is as low as her own, and strange—it sounds strange even to himself. Her hands are lying on his arms—the little hands he used to call snowflakes long ago. Great heaven! how long ago!

He does not repulse her—that is beyond him—but in this new strange voice of his there is assuredly no welcome. He feels choking. The dead past is so horribly dead that he cannot bear to look upon it. He feels cold—benumbed. What is he to say to her, or she to him? Must this battle be fought? And through all this weary wondering there is ever present with him a strong fear.

If Tita should hear of this—if she should learn that Marian was here to-night—with him—alone! His heart sinks within him. Not all the waters of Jordan could wash him clean in her eyes.

A sudden anger against this woman rises within him. Has she not been his undoing from first to last? Gently, but with determination, he lifts her fingers from his arms.

"Is this wise?" says he.

"No one can know. No one," says she hurriedly. "I have arranged it all. I am staying with the Heriots, and when I heard at dinner that you would be here to-night, I felt that I should—must see you."

She flings back the soft furred cloak that is enfolding her with a little rapid movement, as though stifling. It falls in a loose mass at her feet, and leaves her standing before him a very picture of beauty perfected. Beauty ripe, yet fresh!

All in black! From head to foot black clothes her. In her hair jet stars are shining, round her neck jet sparkles, making more fair the sweet fair flesh beneath; and her gown that clings around her shapely limbs as though it loves them, is black, too, and glittering with black beads.

She is looking her loveliest. Maurice takes a step towards her. Nature (as poor a thing at times as it is often grand) compels this step, then suddenly he stops. All at once, from the shadow of the room, the memory of a small, sweet, angry, frowning little face stands out.

"Still——" begins he.

"You need not be uneasy about me," says Marian, in the full egotism of her nature, still believing herself as dear to him as in those old days when he was at her feet. "I told them—the Heriot girl (who would follow me, and see to my bad headache)—that I should go for a long walk in the park to ease the pain; I told her not to expect me for some time. You know they let me do as I like. I ran through the park, and at the village inn I engaged a fly."

"But the people at the inn?"

"They could not see me. They did not know me; and, besides, I felt I could risk all to see you." She pauses. She lifts her beautiful face to his, and suddenly flings herself into his arms. "Oh, Maurice! you are free now—free! Oh! those cursed days when your mother watched and followed me. Now at last I can come to you, and you are free!"

"Free?"

"Yes, yes." She has raised herself again from his unwilling arms, and is gazing at him feverishly. So wild is her mood, so exalted in its own way, that she does not mark the coldness of his mien. "What is that little fool to you? Nothing! A mere shadow in your path!"

"She is my wife," says Rylton steadily.

"And such a wife!" Marian laughs nervously, strangely. "Besides," eagerly, "that might be arranged." She leans towards him. There is something terrible to Rylton in the expression of her eyes, the certainty that lies in them, that he is as eager to rid his life of Tita as she is. "There are acts, words of hers that could be used. On less"—again she goes close to him and presses the fingers of one hand against his breast—"on far less evidence than we could produce many a divorce has been procured."

Rylton's eyes are fixed upon her. A sense of revulsion is sickening him. How her eyes are shining! So might a fiend look; and her fingers—they seem to burn through his breast into his very soul.

"Acts—words—whose acts?" asks he slowly.

"Tita's."

"Lady Rylton's? What do you mean?"

He shakes himself suddenly free of the touch that has grown hateful to him.

"I mean," says she boldly, still unconscious of his real meaning of the abyss that lies before her, "that you can at any moment get rid of her. You can at any moment get a divorce!"

"By lying?" says he, with agitation. "By"—vehemently—"dragging her name into the dust. By falsely, grossly swearing against her."

"Why take it so much to heart?" says she, again coming close to him. "She would not care, she would help you. She could then marry her cousin. We could all see how that was. Would it be such false swearing after all?"

"Don't!" says Rylton, in a suffocating tone.

"Ah, Maurice, I understand you. I know how your honour revolts from such a step, but it is only a step—one—one, and then—we——" She covers her eyes with her hands and leans heavily against the table behind her. "We should be together—for ever," whispers she faintly.

A long, long silence follows this. It seems to hold, to envelop the room. It is like darkness! All at once Marian begins to tremble. She lifts her head.

"You do not speak," says she. There is something frantic in her low voice—an awful fear. The first dawn of the truth is breaking on her, but as yet the light is imperfect. "You do not speak," she repeats, and now her voice is higher, shriller; there is agony in it. "You mean—you mean—— What do you mean, Maurice?"

"What can I mean? You called me just now an honourable man."

"Ah, your honour!" says she bitterly.

"You, at least, can find no flaw in it," says he suddenly.

"No? Was it an honourable man who married that girl for her money, loving me all the time? You," passionately, "you did love me then?"

There is question in her tone.

"The dishonour was to her, not to you," returns he, his eyes bent on the ground.

"Oh, forget her! What has she got to do with us?" cries she, with a sudden burst of angry misery, stung by the fact that he had given no answer to that last question of hers. "You loved me once. You loved me. Oh, Maurice," smiting her hands together, "you cannot have forgotten that! You cannot. Why should I remember if you forget? Each kiss of yours, each word, is graven on my soul! When I am dead, perhaps I shall forget, but not till then; and you—you, too—you must remember!"

"I remember!"

He is looking white and haggard.

"Ah!"

There is a quick triumphant note in her voice.

"But what?" he goes on quickly. "What have I to remember about you? That I prayed you on my knees day after day to give yourself to me. To risk the chances of poverty, to marry me—and," slowly, "I remember, too, your answer. It was always 'No'. You loved me, you said, but you would wait. Poverty frightened you. I would have given my life for you, you would not give even your comfort for me. Even when my engagement with—with——"

"Your wife."

The words come like a knife from between her clenched teeth.

"With Tita was almost accomplished—but not quite—I spoke to you again, but you still held back. You let me go—you deliberately gave me up to another. Was that love? I tell you," says he vehemently, "that all the money the world contains would not have forced me from you at that time. You of your own accord put me outside your life. Was that love?"

"I was content to wait. I did not seek another in marriage. I, too, was poor. But I swore to myself to live and die a pauper—for your sake, if—if no help came to us." She pauses. A sigh—a cruel sigh bursts from her lips. "No help came."

She is deadly white. A sudden reaction from hope, sure and glorious, to horrible despair is mastering her. She had not thought, she had not known she loved him so well until now, when it has begun to dawn upon her that he no longer loves her.

In all her life no gladness had come to her until she met Rylton, and then her heart went forth, but without the full generosity of one who had been fed with love from its birth. Soured, narrowed by her surroundings, and chilled by a dread of the poverty she had so learned to fear, she had hung back when joy was offered to her, and now that joy was dead. It would be hers never, never! The love on which she had been counting all these days,