'Do you remember a thing you said two years ago, Geoffrey, when I asked you to be my friend? Well, there need be no secret now. I mean never to see Mr. Amidon again. I don't care what society says or thinks. He has made it impossible for me to live with him. I don't blame him, for he never could have had much satisfaction out of me, poor creature. He knew from the beginning that I cared nothing for him; it was merely an arrangement on account of property, and I--I consented more for my father's sake than----' 'You need not take the trouble to say that to me!' interrupted Geoffrey with a harsh laugh. 'No; I will tell you the whole truth,' she said, leaning back in her chair and surveying him attentively. 'I have always told you that, so far as I knew it; but now, for the first time, I think I know it all. I thought I needed something more than your love, but it was a mistake. I had not had enough of it to know what it could be--that is all. Mr. Amidon has at least taught me that; he has taught me by showing me all that it is not. I used to think there were so many pleasant things in the world, that no one pleasure--not even the pleasure of your love--could make up for the loss of the others. But I have found that no pleasure can be really enjoyed except through love; one might as well save money for dresses by going without food. What is the use of fine clothes if you are dead?' 'Do you intend to divorce your husband?' Ellice looked down for a moment at her hands, then glanced up with a smile and nodded. 'Does he know of it?' 'No. He does not know where I am at this moment. I left him suddenly yesterday in Paris. But he cannot help himself; he has no defence.' 'Well, and after you have got your divorce--what then?' Ellice was looking straight at Geoffrey when he asked this question, and for all answer she gave him another of her strange, unexpected smiles. Geoffrey stood up; this scarcely disguised avowal that she believed her power over him to be undiminished so far defeated itself as to give him strength for at least temporary resistance. He took her letter with its enfolded contents off the mantelpiece. 'Two years have made more difference with me than they seem to have made with you,' he said. 'I don't pretend to be as fresh-hearted and as ready to begin life over again now as I was then, and perhaps I can give you the friendly counsel to-day which you expected of me that afternoon at Lady Feuilleton's. You will make a great mistake, in my opinion, in leaving your husband. He can be of more use to you than anybody else can. The longer you live the more of that sort of help you will need. You will find it more inconvenient to give up the world than it was to give up me. My advice is that you take the next train back to Paris.'