“He doesn’t care! he doesn’t care!” she wailed. “I don’t believe he ever did, and now he’s gone back to that hateful woman again. Why shouldn’t _I_ amuse myself if I want to? He doesn’t love me, and—and other people do!” Muriel’s face grew stern with pain. If she had wished for revenge it was at her feet, but with all her soul she sorrowed for the wreckage of two lives. “I don’t think you are quite yourself,” she said. “If you love Jack, you know he is the only other person there is. He must have cared for you as well, or he wouldn’t have married you, dear. So put the other people quite away, and smile, and wear your prettiest clothes. You will find Mrs. le Mentier quite a secondary consideration. Why, she isn’t even pretty! Jack only goes to see her because you won’t be nice to him. Now have you been quite nice to him? Given up yourself in all the little ways, that he might give himself up to you in the great ways? Remember men are like children: you must put their toys away, and bring them out again at the right times, and not fret them about unnecessary things. Now, put on some of the dear violets and come home to tea with me!” Gladys looked at her suspiciously. Muriel laughed. “There’s nothing I want to get out of you!” she cried; “and you are no use to me whatever. _Now_, will you come?” Gladys had the grace to blush; an impulse to trust the girl she had wronged moved her. She gave her a letter to read and went out of the room to get her things on. Muriel read the letter standing, then she went to the window and sat down. She felt very tired. It is not so much of a surprise to find the outwardly barbarous with angel hearts, as to see the delicate and finished products of a noble civilization inwardly corrupt. The letter was from Major Kennedy. There are times when conditional immortality seems the only safeguard of heaven. Muriel felt too miserable almost to breathe. There come moments in the brightest lives of blank depression. The greatest effort she ever made was to take Gladys back to tea with her. That evening Jack Hurstly dined at home, and his wife burned an unanswered letter. CHAPTER XXXVI “There is still sun on the wall.” “SO Launcelot is to go to school, and Cynthia is to be married, and you are to be left all alone?” asked Muriel smiling as she handed Geoff a cup of tea. She had handed him a good many cups of tea since he had been back in England. “I am to be left all alone,” repeated the doctor, looking at her steadily.