"Just what my husband said. He thought that you were absolutely bound to prove what you said, or at least to give a good excuse for it." "Absolutely bound?" "Well, I mean if you were to keep your place in society." "And in your house?" "Oh, he did not go so far as that. Everybody comes to my house." "Yes; but, Mrs. Pocklington, I don't want to come in the capacity of 'everybody.'" "Then, I think he did mean that you must do what I say, before you went on coming in any other capacity." George looked at Mrs. Pocklington. Mrs. Pocklington smiled diplomatically. "Is Miss Pocklington out?" asked George. "Yes," said Mrs. Pocklington, "she is out." "Not back soon?" asked George, smiling in his turn. "Not yet." "Not until----?" "Well, Mr. Neston, I dare say you know what I mean." "I think so. Fortunately, there is no difficulty. Shall we say Tuesday?" "When Tuesday comes, we will see if we say Tuesday." "And, otherwise, I am----?" "Otherwise, my dear George, you have no one to persuade except----" "Ah, that is the most difficult task of all." "I don't know anything about that. Only I hope you believe what you say. Young men are so conceited nowadays." "When Miss Pocklington comes in, you will tell her how sorry I was not to see her?" "Certainly." "And that I look forward to Tuesday?" "No; I shall say nothing about that. You are not out of the wood yet." "Oh yes, I am." But Mrs. Pocklington stood firm; and George departed, feeling that the last possibility of mercy for Neaera Witt had vanished. There is a limit to unselfishness; nay, what place is there for pity when public duty and private interest unite in demanding just severity? CHAPTER XIV. NEAERA'S LAST CARD. Neaera Witt had one last card to play. Alas, how great the stake, and how slight the chance! Still she would play it. If it failed, she would only drink a little deeper of humiliation, and be trampled a little more contemptuously under foot. What did that matter? "You will not condemn a woman unheard," she wrote, with a touch of melodrama. "I expect you here on Sunday evening at nine. You cannot be so hard as not to come." George had written that he would come, but that his determination was unchangeable. "I must come, as you ask me," he said; "but it is useless--worse than useless." Still he would come.