"She has always perfect manners. She is, as you say, very civil." "She is proud," coldly. "You will come?" "I think not. By that time you will in all probability have made it up with her." "The very essence of improbability." "While I--shall not have made it up with my husband." "One seems quite as possible as the other." "Oh, no. Isabel is a good woman. You would do well to go back to her. Swansdown is as bad a man as I know, and that," with a mirthless laugh, "is saying a great deal. I should gain nothing by a reconciliation with him. For one thing, an important matter, I have a great deal more money than he has, and, for another, there are no children." Her voice changes here; an indescribable alteration not only hardens, but desolates it. "I have been fortunate there," she says, "if in nothing else in my unsatisfactory life. There is no smallest bond between me and Swansdown. If I could be seriously glad of anything it would be of that. I have nothing belonging to him." "His name." "Oh, as for that--does it belong to him? Has he not forfeited a decent right to it a thousand times? No; there is nothing. If there had been a child he would have made a persecution of it--and so I am better off as it is. And yet, there are moments when I envy you that little child of yours. However----" "Yet if Swansdown were to make an overture----" "Do not go on. It is of all speculations the most useless. Do not pursue the subject of Swansdown, I entreat you. Let"--with bitter meaning--"'sleeping dogs lie.'" Baltimore laughs shortly. "That is severe," says he. "It is how I feel toward him; the light in which I regard him. If," turning a face to his that is hardly recognizable, so pale it is with ill-suppressed loathing, "he were lying on his deathbed and sent for me, it would give me pleasure to refuse to go to him." She takes her hand from his arm and motions him to ascend the steps leading into the conservatory. "But you?" says he, surprised. "Let me remain here a little while. I am tired. My head aches, I----" "Let me stay with you." "No," smiling faintly. "What I want is to be alone. To feel the silence. Go. Do not be uneasy about me. Believe me you will be kind if you do as I ask you." "It is a command," says he slowly. And slowly, too, he turns away from her. Seeing him so uncertain about leaving her, she steps abruptly into a dark side path, and finding a chair sinks into it. The soft breaking of the dawn over the tree tops far away seems to add another pang to the anguish that is consuming her. She covers her face with her hands. Oh! if it had all been different. Two lives sacrificed! nay, three! For surety Isabel cannot care for him. Oh! if it had been she, she herself--what is there she could not have forgiven him? Nay, she must have forgiven him, because life without him would have been insupportable. If only she might have loved him honorably. If only she might ever love him--successfully--dishonorably!