"You certainly used to give the impression of bearing up under it," smiled Caylesham. "But things are changed now, are they?" "Yes, thank God! Imagine going on like that all your life!" Caylesham threw himself into a chair with a hearty laugh. "Now we've gone just as far as we can with discretion," he declared. "What do you mean by that?" asked Blake rather angrily. "Well, I'm not an idiot, am I, as well as a moral deformity?" "I don't know what you are talking about." "Yes, but I know what you've been talking about, Blake. I know it all except one thing--and that I don't propose to ask." Blake rose with a sulky air and tossed away the end of his cigarette. "And what's that?" "The lady's name, my boy," said Caylesham placidly. This talk was fuel to Blake's flame. It showed him the alternative--the only alternative. (He forgot that suggestion about the Himalayas, which did not, perhaps, deserve to be forgotten.) And the alternative was hideous to him now--hideous in its loss of all nobility, of all the ideal, in its cynically open-eyed acceptance of what was low and base. He would have come to that but for Sibylla. But for him, even Sibylla--Sibylla mated to Grantley--might have come to it also. It was from such a fate as this that they must rescue one another. One wise decision, one courageous stroke, and the thing was done. Very emotional, very exalted, he contrasted with the life Caylesham had led the life he and Sibylla were to lead. Could any man hesitate? With a new impetus and with louder self-applause he turned to his task of persuading Sibylla to the decisive step. Part of the work was accomplished. Sibylla had cast Grantley out of her heart; she disclaimed and denied both her love and her obligation to him. The harder part remained: that had been half done in her vigil by the baby's cot. But it was ever in danger of being undone again. A cry from the boy's lips, the trustful clinging of his arms from day to day, fought against Blake. Only in those gusts of unnatural feeling, those spasms of repugnance born of her misery, was she in heart away from the child. On these Blake could not rely, nor did he seek to, since to speak of them brought her to instant remorse; but, left to be brooded over in silence, they might help him yet. He trusted his old weapons more--his need of her love and her need to give it. Caylesham's life gave him a new instance and added strength to his argument. He told her of the man, though not the man's name, sketching the life and the state of mind it brought a man to. "That was my life till you came," he said. "That was what was waiting for me. Am I to go back to that?" He could attack her on another side too.