"You could bear it if you thought it brought me happiness, could you not? I know I am selfish, Cynthia." "No, no--you are anything but selfish! Oh, darling, live for me a little if you will not for yourself! Father asks you to do that as well as I. You will make us suffer if you suffer--and I cannot bear to part from you again! If you love me, Hubert, say nothing--for my father's sake and mine!" It was a strange plea. And while Hubert listened and strove to calm her, there came a new and unwonted sound upon the stairs--the sound of a struggle, of trampling feet, of angry voices--of a woman's shriek and a man's stifled curse. Cynthia sprang to her feet. "I hear my father's voice!" she said. "What can that mean?" * * * * * There had been another visitor that afternoon to Hubert's lodgings in Russell Square. Sabina Meldreth had presented herself at three o'clock, and had inquired for Mrs. Vane. She was told that Mrs. Vane had gone out, and was not likely to be back until six or half-past six o'clock. "And then the General's coming with her," Jenkins had informed her, "and they're to dine together, because it is the first time that master has stayed up to dinner since he was taken ill." "Oh, that'll do very well for me!" said Sabina sullenly. "I shall see the whole lot of them then, I suppose. I'll wait!" and she planted herself on one of the wooden chairs in the hall. "Won't you come down-stairs?" said Jenkins. "My missus is there." "No, I won't. I want to see Mrs. Vane; and perhaps she'll get away or refuse to see me if I am down-stairs. Sitting here, she can't escape so easy. I want Mrs. Vane." Jenkins shrugged his shoulders. "You seem to have got a grudge against her," he observed. "Didn't she pay you properly?" "No, she didn't--not that it's any business of yours," Sabina remarked. And, after that speech, Jenkins retired with dignity, feeling that it was not his part to converse any longer with a woman who chose to be so very impolite to him. "She looks very queer!" he observed to his wife down-stairs. "She's in black, and her eyes are red as if she'd been crying, and her face as white as death. I think she looks as if she was going out of her mind." Whereupon Mrs. Jenkins herself went up-stairs to inspect the dangerous Sabina, but came down with the report that "she looked quiet enough." And so the afternoon went on--and still Mrs. Vane did not arrive. But Cynthia did. When Sabina heard Miss West's voice speaking to the maid at the door, she gave a violent start. Then she rose and went cautiously into a little room which opened off the hall, and stood behind the door, so that Cynthia could not see her. As soon as Cynthia had gone up-stairs, Sabina dashed out into the hall again, and inspected the square through the pane of glass at the side of the hall door.