"You love yourself more than the boy, and your pride more than life or happiness," she said slowly. He frowned, but heard her without interruption. "So I think you might do it," she ended. "Sibylla!" cried Blake, leaning forward again. A gesture from her arrested his speech. He rose slowly to his feet and stood listening. "I may be made a fool of. I don't make a fool of myself. If I pledge myself to you to do it, you know I shall do it, Sibylla?" "Yes, then you would do it," she agreed. "Oh, but it's nonsense, it's rank madness, it's--it's inconceivable!" Blake broke out. "I do now so pledge myself," said Grantley. Sibylla nodded; she understood. She leant back in her chair now, regarding her husband thoughtfully. Grantley's pale face was set in a fixed smile; he met her gaze steadily. "It's madness--you'll be stopped!" Blake burst out. "I can't believe you mean it. Anyhow, you'll be stopped." "By you? Will you send for a policeman? or will you come to my house and stop me? Nothing can stop me unless you kill me. Is that your choice?" He spoke to Blake, but he looked still at Sibylla. Blake came near and scrutinised the pale face with eyes whose expression grew from wonder and incredulity into a horrified apprehension. The silence now seemed long. "Yes," said Sibylla at last, "it's like you. That's what you'd do. I never thought of it; but I'm not surprised. It's you. It's just that in you which has made my life an impossible thing. You sacrificed me to it. You would sacrifice yourself and your son. Yes, it's you." She put her hands up before her face for a moment, pressing her fingers on her eyelids. Then her eyes sought his face again. "But, Sibylla----" cried Blake. "Yes, he'd do it, Walter," she interrupted, not turning round. Blake took two restless paces to and fro, and sank into his chair again. "You understand now. It lies with you," said Grantley to his wife. "I've told you. I was bound to tell you. Now it lies with you." Again passion seized her. "No, no, that's false! It doesn't lie with me! It lies at your door, both the crime--the hideous crime--and, I pray God, the punishment!" "I'm not talking about the crime or the punishment," he said coldly. "I take those on myself as much as you like. What depends on you is whether the thing happens. That's all I meant to say." Young Blake was staring at him now as if fascinated by his firm and hideous resolve. Slowly it had been driven into Blake's brain that the man meant what he said, that he would do the thing. The man looked like it, and Sibylla believed he would. He would kill himself--yes, and the pretty child with whom Sibylla had been used to play. He could see the picture of that now--of Sibylla's beautiful motherhood. His heart turned sick within him as he began to believe Grantley's sombre pledge. "It's a lie," said Sibylla in grim defiance. "Nothing depends on me. It's the evil of your own heart. I've nothing to do with it."