"You can't. Just listen to the rain." "Rain! What's that got to do with it?" Sergius spoke with a sudden unutterable contempt. "Ring for another bottle of champagne," Anthony replied. "This one is empty." "Well--for a parson and a teetotaller, I must say!" Sergius rang the bell. A second bottle was opened. The servant went out of the room. As he closed the door, the wind sighed harshly against the window panes, driving the rain before it. "Rough at sea to-night," Anthony said. The remark was an obvious one; but, as spoken, it sounded oddly furtive, and full of hidden meaning. Sergius evidently found it so, for he said: "Why, whom d'you know that's going to sea to-night?" Anthony was startled by the quick question, and replied almost nervously:-- "Nobody in particular--why should I?" "I don't know why, but I think you do." "People one knows cross the channel every night almost." "Of course," Sergius said indifferently. He glanced towards the clock and again mechanically his hand went up, for a second, to his left breast. Anthony leaned forward in his chair quickly, and broke into speech. He had seen the stare at the clock-face, the gesture. "It's strange," he said, "how people go out of our lives, how friends go, and enemies!" "Enemies!" "Yes. I sometimes wonder which exit is the sadder. When a friend goes--with him goes, perhaps for ever, the chance of saying 'I am your friend.' When an enemy goes--" "Well, what then?" "With him goes, perhaps for ever, too, the chance of saying, 'I am not your enemy.'" "Pshaw! Parson's talk, Anthony." "No, Sergius, other men forgive besides parsons; and other men, and parsons too, pass by their chances of forgiving." "You're a whole Englishman, I'm only half an Englishman. There's something untamed in my blood, and I say--damn forgiveness!" "And yet you've forgiven." "Whom?" "Olga Mayne." The face of Sergius did not change at the sound of this name, unless, perhaps, to a more fixed calm, a more still and pale coldness. "Olga is punished," he said. "She is ruined." "Her ruin may be repaired." Sergius smiled quietly. "You think so?" "Yes. Tell me, Sergius"--Anthony spoke with a strong earnestness, a strong excitement that he strove to conceal and hold in check--"you loved her?" "Yes, I loved her--certainly." "You will always love her?" "Since I'm not changeable, I daresay I shall." Anthony's thin, eager face brightened. A glow of warmth burned in his eyes and on his cheeks. "Then you would wish her ruin repaired." "Should I?" "If you love her, you must." "How could it be repaired?" "By her marriage with--Vernon."