'No: that won't do! nothing like that,' interrupted Geoffrey in a heavy voice. 'I am not a monster of virtue and self-restraint, Ellice: and I'm not a cur either. Do you suppose your husband would fall in with this arrangement. And do you suppose that I would condescend to sneak about his premises, having a secret understanding with his wife--secret from him? It is true enough that there can no longer be a fresh and pure love between you and me; but there can be no friendship--because, for good or evil, I love you still! I can commit a crime, but I will tell no lie, nor live one. Everything must be open and above board between us and the world, or there must be nothing at all.' 'Oh, Geoffrey, this is terrible!' murmured Ellice, letting her folded hands hang before her. In fact, she had not anticipated his attitude; she was a woman who wanted much, but who was not, perhaps, willing to go all lengths in order to get it. At the same time she could not help admiring what he had said and liking him all the better for it; and she certainly did not admire Mr. Amidon, or passionately like the fashionable life which they led, and of which she had seen enough clearly to comprehend its limitations. Nevertheless, a woman who has achieved a position before the world will hesitate profoundly before abandoning outward conventionality for avowed outlawry. Compromises are more convenient. But how if a stubborn man persists in refusing to stoop to compromise? The compromise was in itself reasonable in the highest degree, if not also in the highest degree moral; but that evidently made no impression on Geoffrey. There was a sound of voices and laughter approaching the open window; Lady Feuilleton and Mr. Amidon were coming back from the lawn. Ellice took up her fan nervously, and passed a hand over her hair. She had been able to entertain such reflections as the above, while the man with whose soul she had played fast and loose was standing, as it were, with the sword at his heart. He now spoke again; and the words in which he began made her start, for it brought back to her memory another scene of a year and a month before. Only this time he did not grasp her wrist. 'Look at me, my girl! I will wait in the drawing-room of the Lansdowne Hotel this evening from nine o'clock until eleven. If I see you there, there will be no trouble in getting free from your husband. If not, never try to see me again. You will have done worse than murder.' The others came in, full of badinage and liveliness. Lady Feuilleton protested that she believed Mr. Herne and Mrs. Amidon had been flirting.