"I think you know what I mean; and in this connection I don't appreciate repartee for its own sake," said Grantley wearily, but with a polite smile. A sudden impulse came upon her. She leant across towards him and said: "Grantley, have you seen Frank to-day?" "No, I haven't to-day." "I generally go and sit by him for a little while at this time when I'm free. Did you know that?" "I gathered it," said Grantley. "You've never come with me, nor offered to." "I'm not encouraged to volunteer things in my relations with you, Sibylla." "Will you come with me now?" she asked. She herself could not tell under what impulse she spoke--whether it were in hope that at the last he might change, in the hope of convincing herself that he would never change. She watched him very intently, as though much hung on the answer that he gave. Grantley seemed to weigh his answer too, looking at his wife with searching eyes. There was a patch of red on his cheeks. Evidently what she had said stirred him, and his composure was maintained only by an effort. At last he spoke: "I'm sorry not to do anything you ask or wish, but as matters are, I will not come and see Frank with you." "Why not?" she asked in a quick half-whisper. His eyes were very sombre as he answered her. "When you remember that you're my wife, I'll remember that you're the mother of my son. Till then you are an honoured and welcome guest in this house or in any house of mine." Their eyes met; both were defiant, neither showed a hint of yielding. Sibylla drew in her breath in a long inhalation. "Very well, I understand," she said. He rose from his chair. "You're going upstairs now?" he suggested, as though about to open the door. "I'm going, but I'm not going upstairs to-night," she answered as she rose. "I shall go and write a letter or two instead." He bowed politely as she passed out of the room. Then he sat down at the table again and rested his head on both his hands. It took long--it took a very long while. She was hard to subdue. Hard it was too to subdue himself--to be always courteous, never more than permissibly ironical, to wait for his victory. Yet not a doubt crossed his mind that he was on the right track, that he must succeed in the end, that plain reason and good sense must win the day. But the fight was very long. His face looked haggard in the light as he sat alone by the table and told himself to persevere. And Sibylla, confirmed in her despair, bitterly resentful of the terms he had proposed, seeing the hopelessness of her life, fearing to look on the face of her child lest the pain should rend her too pitilessly, sat down and wrote her answer to Walter Blake. The answer was the promise he had asked. The images had done their work--hers of him and his of her--and young Blake's fancy picture of himself. CHAPTER XIII THE DEAD AND ITS DEAD