"Yes, if he knew how ill I am--if he knew what the doctor says about me--I believe he would come back." "And marry you?" asked Christabel, deadly pale. "That's as may be," retorted the other, with her Parisian shrug. Christabel stood up, and laid her clenched hand on the low draperied mantelpiece, almost as if she were laying it on an altar to give emphasis to an oath. "Then he shall come back--then he shall marry you," she said in a grave earnest voice. "I will rob no woman of her husband. I will doom no fellow-creature to lifelong shame!" "What," cried Stella Mayne, with almost a shriek, "you will give him up--for me!" "Yes. He has never belonged to me as he has belonged to you--it is no shame for me to renounce him--grief and pain--yes, grief and pain unspeakable--but no disgrace. He has sinned, and he must atone for his sin. I will not be the impediment to your marriage." "But if you were to give him up he might not marry me: men are so difficult to manage," faltered the actress, aghast at the idea of such a sacrifice, seeing the whole business in the light of circumstances unknown to Miss Courtenay. "Not men with conscience and honour," answered Christabel, with unshaken firmness. "I feel very sure that if Mr. Hamleigh were free he would do what is right. It is only his engagement to me that hinders his making atonement to you. He has lived among worldly people who have never reminded him of his duty--who have blunted his finer feelings with their hideous wordliness--oh, I know how worldly women talk--as if there were neither hell nor heaven, only Belgravia and Mayfair--and no doubt worldly men are still worse. But he--he whom I have so loved and honoured--cannot be without honour and conscience. He shall do what is just and right." She looked almost inspired as she stood there with pale cheeks and kindling eyes, thinking far more of that broad principle of justice than of the fragile emotional creature trembling before her. This comes of feeding a girl's mind with Shakespeare and Bacon, Carlyle and Plato, to say nothing of that still broader and safer guide, the Gospel. Just then there was the sound of footsteps approaching the door--a measured masculine footfall. The emotional creature flew to the door, opened it, murmured a few words to some person without, and closed it, but not before a whiff of Latakia had been wafted into the flower-scented room. The footsteps moved away in another direction, and Christabel was much too absorbed to notice that faint breath of tobacco. "There's not the least use in your giving him up," said Stella, resolutely: "he would never marry me. You don't know him as well as I do." "Do I not? I have lived only to study his character for the best part of a year. I know he will do what is just." Stella Mayne suddenly clasped her hands before her face and sobbed aloud.