"I have deserved it," he said, humbly. "The cruel work is done--yes, done past undoing. You have not heard the last of it. Then, since you ask me what I have to say to you, it is this: That man, that instrument of your malice who is now your master, has been to say that he can compel me to live with him, or imprison me if I refuse. Can he do it?" Hugh Ritson lifted his eyes with a blind, vacant stare. "To live with him? Him? You to live with him?" he said, absently. "To live under his roof--those were his words. Can he do it? I mean if the law recognizes him as my husband?" Hugh Ritson's eyes wandered. "Do it? Your husband?" he echoed, incoherently. "I know well what he wants," said Greta, breathing heavily; "it is not myself he is anxious for--but he can not have the one without the other." "The one without the other?" echoed Hugh Ritson in a low tone. Then he strode across the room in visible agitation. "Greta, that man is--. Do you know who he is?" "Paul Drayton, the innkeeper of Hendon," she answered, calmly. "No, no; he is your--" He paused, his brows knit, his fingers interlaced. Her bosom swelled. "Would you tell me that he is my husband?" she said indignantly. Hugh Ritson again passed his hand across his brow. "Greta, I have deserved your distrust," he said, in an altered tone. "What is done can never be undone," she answered. His voice had regained its calmness, but his manner was still agitated. "I may serve you even yet," he said; "I have done you too much wrong; I know that." "What is your remorse worth now?" she asked. "It comes too late." Then he looked her steadily in the face, and replied: "Greta, it is well said that the most miserable man in all the world is he who feels remorse before he does the wrong. I was--I am--that man. I did what I did knowing well that I should repent it--ay, to the last hour of my life. But I was driven to it--I had no power to resist it--it mastered me then--it would master me now." The finger-tips of Greta's right hand were pressed close against her cheek. Hugh Ritson took a step nearer. "Greta," he said, and his voice fell to a broken whisper, "there are some men to whom love is a passing breath, a gentle gale that beats on the face and sports in the hair, and then is gone. To me it is a wound, a deep, corrosive, inward wound that yearns and burns." Greta shuddered; it was as if his words stung her. Then with an impatient gesture she turned again toward the door, saying: "This is the death-hour of your child, and, Heaven pardon you, it seems to be the death-hour of your brother's hopes too!" She faced about. "Do you think of him?" she added, lifting her voice. "When you see this man in his place, wasting his substance and mine, do you ever think of him where he is?" Her voice trembled and broke. There was a moment's silence. She had turned her head aside, and he heard the low sound of sobs.