Something strange had taken place. She felt the relief of returning strength. She rose, kissed the breath of the parted, innocent lips, and retired to her own room. When Hugh, an hour afterwards, came home, he entered noiselessly and advanced a pace or two on tip-toe. Her placid, regular breathing told him that she slept. He withdrew as gently as he had entered, and went to bed. The next day was Sunday. They met at breakfast. She approached him, and offered her cheek to his kiss. “Only that, Irene?” he asked, with his hand on her shoulder. “I shall always give you all that is in me to give,” she replied. “You must try to be content.” He turned away sorrowfully, and sat down to table. Presently he told her how he had entered her room last night, and found her sleeping. It had made him happier. “I was with Hughie all day,” she explained, with feminine suppression of connective links. “He is a comfort to you?” “A new comfort,” she said. The day passed tolerably enough, and the next and the next. Their outer life remained unchanged. Yet it was the simulacrum of the old. She met him with gentle kindness, uttering no word of reproach, and manifesting a tender interest in his concerns and comforts. But the unassayable essence of their union had gone. She had grown reserved, self-contained. Hugh bowed his head beneath his punishment. He recognised the futility of pleading. Once more she took her place among the cold stars, hopelessly remote. The stamp of finality seemed impressed upon their relations. And the hunger for that which could never be came into his eyes. They rarely spoke of the disintegrating cause. Once she asked him whether he feared public exposure. He reassured her. The man would be a devil if he blabbed such a secret abroad, considering the awful peril in which he would place her. The other would keep silent for her own sake. Why she had confided in Gerard was a mystery. “You must seek the motive in love or hate,” said Irene. “Hate, then.” “I would not be too sure,” said Irene, who had tasted the bitter fruit of knowledge. “A woman can have strange jealousies.” “You need not fear,” he said. But her words gave poignancy to gnawing misgivings. He had counted so absolutely on Minna’s silence. Now, who could tell of what vindictive folly she was capable? “My mind is easy, Hugh,” she replied. “I have faith in my destiny.” He looked enquiringly. “As the boy’s mother,” she explained. So things went on until one evening, when, in consequence of a long-standing invitation, the Harroways dined with them. Harroway took Hugh into a corner before dinner. His face was beaming. “I have seen Merriam. He has told me. I want to fling myself on my knees before your wife. Believe me, I have all along had terrible doubts--ask Selina. It makes me feel young again.” “What did he tell you?” asked Hugh, anxiously.