"You cannot guess—and you a woman?" "I cannot." "Then patch this and this together. Why does a woman go away and hide when a man has deserted her? Why?" Marcel wiped the suds from her red, wrinkled hands. She stared at her husband like an idiot, then she sat down heavily in a chair. "And that’s why Mam’selle will buy Pierre." For a full moment Marcel looked at her husband as if she had never seen him before, then her dreary eyes wandered to the window. Across the road, in the growing darkness, lay three small graves in a row. Marcel was seeking them, now, seeking them with all the fierce love and loyalty that lay deep in her heart. And out of those pitiful mounds little forms, oh! such tiny forms, seemed to rise and plead for Jo Morey. Who was it that had shared the black hours when Marcel’s babies came—and went? Whose understanding and sympathy had made life possible when all else failed? "I’ll do no harm to Mam’selle Jo Morey!" The tone and words electrified Longville. "What?" he asked roughly. "If what you hint is true," Marcel spoke as from a great distance, her voice trailing pitifully; "I’ll never use it to hurt Mam’selle, or I could not meet my God." "You’ll do what I say!" But as he spoke Longville had a sense of doubt. For the second time that day he was conscious of being baffled by a woman; his purposes being threatened. "You may regret," he growled, "if you do not help along with this—this matter of Pierre. There will come a time when Pierre will lie at your door. What then, eh?" "Is that any reason why I should throw him at the door of another woman?" Marcel’s pale face twitched. "Why should a man expect any woman’s door to open to him," she went on, "when he has disgraced himself all his life?" Longville stirred restlessly. Actually he dared not strike his wife, but he had all the impulse to do so. He resorted to hoary argument. "’Tis the unselfish, the noble woman who saves—man!" he muttered, half ashamed of his own words. At this Marcel laughed openly. Something was rising to the surface, something that life had taught her. "It’s a poor argument to use when the unworthy one is the gainer by a woman’s unselfishness," retorted Marcel. "Unless she, too, gets something out of her—her nobleness, I should think a man would hate to fling it always in her teeth." Longville half rose; his jaw looked ugly. "’Tis my purpose," he said slowly, harshly, "to marry Mam’selle and Pierre. I have my reasons, and if you cannot help you can keep out of the way!" "Yes, I can do that," murmured Marcel. She had taken up her knitting and she rarely spoke while she knitted. She thought!