She smiled bitterly. "As it happens, in his letters to me after I left him, he amply confessed it." "Because his wish was to make peace, to throw himself at your feet. He accused himself, more than was just. But you do not really think him mercenary and greedy, you _know_ that he was neither! Mrs. Barnes, Roger is ill and lonely." "His mode of life accounts for it." "You mean that he has begun to drink, has fallen into bad company. That may be true. I cannot deny it. But consider. A man from whom everything is torn at one blow; a man of not very strong character, not accustomed to endure hardness.--Does it never occur to you that you took a frightful responsibility?" "I protected myself--and my child." He breathed deep. "Or rather--did you murder a life--that God had given you in trust?" He paused, and she paused also, as though held by the power of his will. They were passing along the public garden that borders the road; scents of lilac and fresh leaf floated over the damp grass; the moonlight was growing in strength, and the majesty of the gorge, the roar of the leaping water all seemed to enter into the moral and human scene, to accent and deepen it. Daphne suddenly clung to a seat beside the path, dropped into it. "Captain Boyson! I--I cannot bear this any longer." "I will not reproach you any more," he said, quietly. "I beg your pardon. The past is irrevocable, but the present is here. The man who loved you, the father of your child, is alone, ill, poor, in danger of moral ruin, because of what you have done. I ask you to go to his aid. But first let me tell you exactly what I have just heard from England." He repeated the greater part of French's letter, so far as it concerned Roger. "He has his mother," said Daphne, when he paused, speaking with evident physical difficulty. "Lady Barnes I hear had a paralytic stroke two months ago. She is incapable of giving advice or help." "Of course, I am sorry. But Herbert French----" "No one but a wife could save him--no one!" he repeated with emphasis. "I am _not_ his wife!" she insisted faintly. "I released myself by American law. He is nothing to me." As she spoke she leant back against the seat and closed her eyes. Boyson saw clearly that excitement and anger had struck down her nervous power, that she might faint or go into hysterics. Yet a man of remarkable courtesy and pitifulness towards women was not thereby moved from his purpose. He had his chance; he could not relinquish it. Only there was something now in her attitude which recalled the young Daphne of years ago; which touched his heart. He sat down beside her.