"No, that isn't true. I was done with him the moment he set this errand for me. No woman can love a man who will do that. But I was done with him--from the first I never loved him, I never did--I only married him! I sold out--what I had to sell, myself, my fitness for a place like this. That was what I called success! I wanted to be some one in the world! Look at me now--" X They sat, two figures in an inexorable drama that swept relentlessly forward; tasting of a part of ambition's ripened fruit; yet hungering with the vast, pitiful, merciless human hunger for that other fruit that hung in a garden once not lost. "If it costs my soul, I'll stand by you," he said at last; and he reached out a hand to her suddenly. "No, no!" she cried. "Wait! Wait! I want to think!" A discreet cough sounded. The butler approached bearing coffee. He wore a half sneer on his face now, the sneer of the unpaid mercenary. He doubted, and had cause to doubt, whether the last month's salary would be forthcoming; for butlers read morning papers. "Ah, er, Mrs. Rawn--" he began. "What do you want? How dare you speak to me!" she rejoined. "I do not care to be disturbed! You may go!" He did go; and this was on an errand of his own, an errand which ended in Grace Halsey's chambers. For butlers sometimes take ingenious revenge. XI Halsey and Virginia Rawn sat on for a time at the table, the almost untasted breakfast before them. The sun grew warmer. After a time she rose, and they passed from the gallery toward the interior of the house. The tray upon the hall table held a scanty morning load for it--one letter and a telegram; the former addressed to Mrs. Charles Halsey, the latter to herself. "Shall I?" she asked, and tore the envelope across. "It must be from him," he said. She tossed it to him. "Home to-night. JOHN RAWN." CHAPTER IX WHAT CHEER OF THE HARVEST? I The blood of youth is hot. He followed her, in spite of all, forgetting all. They had advanced across the hall toward the gold room, or library. "Oh, Charley, Charley! Don't begin, wait a little," she wailed. "At least till to-night, till afternoon. I don't know what to say yet. I don't know what to do! Let us see him first, and tell him." "Look about you," he commented grimly. "You're going to lose all this--all these splendid, beautiful things." "I don't mind losing them. I want to be poor. Oh, my God! Just to be loved, and clean! Charley, can we?" "But why choose me? There are so many others!" "All like Mr. Rawn himself--men crazed of money, power, selfishness. I wanted something different. Do you think it could have been my father's old ideas coming out in me, so late? He came of a family of revolutionists--independents; 'Progressives,' they call them now. Something of his beliefs--I don't know what it was--"