There was no answer to be made to that protest. Dane stared at the ground, miserably conscious of the hopelessness of the situation. He was determined to keep to his resolution that it should be all or nothing between Cassandra and himself, yet the prospect of parting was intolerable. "Are you thinking entirely of the boy?" he asked slowly, after a pause. "Your husband? Doesn't he enter into your calculations?" Cassandra's face hardened. "No," she said coldly. "I am not thinking of Bernard. If there were only Bernard to consider, it would be different. Bernard has not kept his promise to love and cherish me all his life. I am a live woman, and he treats me like a machine. A man like that has no right to a wife. If I left him, it would open his eyes to his own selfishness, and do him good. He would marry again, and his second wife would reap the benefit. You need me more than Bernard needs me, and I need you... But there's the boy--" "And," said Peignton heavily, "Teresa!" Cassandra glanced at him swiftly, and into her eyes came fear. "Dane... will you, can you,--marry her _new_?" "I have told her that it's impossible, but she insisted on keeping on the engagement. I stood out, but she said that possibly your name might be dragged in if the engagement were broken off just now, after our visit to you.--I could not stand the risk of that, so--it was left!" "And you are engaged to her still?" "Nominally. Yes. She is very considerate. She makes it as easy for me as she can... That's a hateful thing to say! I hate myself for saying it. If it's hard for us, it's harder for her. She's the one left out. She might have made things unbearable. Can you imagine what it would have been if she had blurted out the whole tale,--told it to her own people, to have it handed round the neighbourhood, with a hundred exaggerations within twenty-four hours? A girl might so easily have lost her head under the circumstances, but she--I don't think she reproached me once! She seemed all the way through to think of me more than herself.--I never saw her more sweet!" A vision of Teresa had come into his mind as with flushing cheeks she had said, "There might be children!" Many times over had he recalled that moment, and always with the same tenderness and pain. Cassandra recognised the note in his voice, and felt a very human pang of jealousy. "What did she say about _Me_?" "You and I count as one. We must do. There's no considering us apart. She fears that if I were free, it would be one barrier removed, and we should be the more tempted.--By holding me to my word, she is doing all that is in her power to prevent--"