"She will kill herself rather than do that--and her death will be on my--soul!" said Joan, solemnly. She looked her lover full in the face. Why was it that at that moment in imagination he seemed to hear a bell tolling and to see a churchyard with a yawning grave--towards which a funeral procession was making its way? He gave a short laugh, which was more a sob. What a grip this girl had upon his emotions! "What power you have over me, you girlie!" he said, chokingly. "You seemed to make me see all sorts of things ... Darling, if money is of any good to your friend--I should only feel too thankful to be of any help----What? It is of no use?" "It is of no use!" cried she, in a helpless tone. "None! ... And you mean to tell me--that that few minutes in a registrar’s office--can only be undone--publicly--in the divorce court?" "There is only one other thing that can free her, my dear child--death!" he said, seriously. "People seem to forget that when they rush into matrimony. But--my darling--" he looked anxiously into her half-averted face--"do you mean to say that this entanglement of your friend’s is all you have on your mind--all? Joan"--he grasped her hands--"trust me--your husband--almost your husband--anything you may tell me--will be sacred!" CHAPTER XII Joan shuddered. To hear that fiat of her lover’s--that only death or the divorce court could free a girl in her position from that slight yet deadly tie--and to hear it uttered with such seemingly heartless barbarity--was almost too ghastly to be borne. She hardly understood his last impassioned appeal to her to confide in him--all--all that was troubling her. She stared miserably out upon the river. A steam launch went puffing up stream. Some one on deck was singing an apparently comic song to the strumming of a banjo; for shrill feminine laughter, mingled with ironic "bravos" was borne upon the breeze as the verse came to an end. Then the band engaged for the afternoon struck up a bright little march on the lawn the other side of the shrubbery. The mockery of the careless gaiety of ordinary life jarred her beyond endurance. "Let us go away from here," she exclaimed, starting up, and glancing wildly at Vansittart. His heart misgave him. This meant--he felt--that she was concealing something from him. Well! he must have patience, and bide his time.