“I wanted love, and he—he said he loved me, Jack! Ah! don’t speak! I was a fool and worse! but indeed I didn’t understand, and then—Muriel came,”—he drew in a deep breath, it might have been a sob of relief,—“and I tried to be different. Do you remember that night, two weeks ago, when you came in late and I kissed you, and you—laughed at me? Oh, Jack, how it hurt me! And then the next day he told me he would sell his soul for a kiss. Perhaps he didn’t mean anything, but you had gone to tea with Edith le Mentier, and I—let him, Jack!” He started forward, but she stopped him by a gesture. “Wait till I finish, please,” she said. “Then I understood, and I sent him away, and cried all the afternoon. He wanted me to run away with him, and I was weak and frightened. I don’t know what I should have done if it hadn’t been for Muriel. You said I wasn’t truthful, so I want to be quite truthful now. I think if it hadn’t been for Muriel I should have gone. I wanted to hurt your pride if I couldn’t win your love; but Muriel stood by me, and wouldn’t let me go. She told me what to say to Major Kennedy. I’m not sure—but I believe she said something to him herself—anyway he went off somewhere at once. Oh, Jack, _can’t_ you love me! can you ever be good to me again?” She lifted up her arms towards him, with the tears rolling down her cheeks. She was weak and irresolute, vain and foolish, but he had done nothing to help her, yet she had gone through what had defeated him, and she was asking him whether he could forgive her! “I loved you, Jack,” she cried piteously; “I loved you all the time! And it’s all over now for ever and ever!” The color rushed into her face and a new look came into her eyes—a look he did not understand. “Why do you say it’s all over?” he asked dully. “It may happen again.” “It will never come again,” she said, “because—oh, Jack, I—I’m afraid, but I’m very glad too—it’s always so wonderful, and don’t you understand?” she covered her face with her hands, “I am going to be—the mother of your child!” At last it came to him, and for ever killed the irresponsibility of love’s selfishness. He took her now in his arms, he dared to do so, because now for him too the other was all over. She was helpless and clinging, she was his wife, and she was going into the valley of the shadow of death because she loved him. “Oh, Jack, will you forgive?” “Forgive you!” he cried, and tried to explain to her how sorry he was, how much to blame, and how glad at last that they both of them understood, and how now it would all be different—so wonderfully different! But he did not tell her about Edith le Mentier. When she was safe in bed he wrote to the other woman, and hurt her very bitterly. The other woman, for all her faults, is very often brave, and Edith le Mentier suffered horribly; but she bore the great defeat, and was only a very little irritable the next morning. She did not sing Gounod’s song again; she said it was scarcely suitable.