"I'm not tired. I can go quite well by myself. You look more tired than I do," he said. "Come, we shall be late," and he set off down the hill at a brisk pace. Her appeal then had failed; this last little incident told her that with unpitying plainness. If he had yielded for a moment before the face of reality, he soon recovered himself, turned away from the sight, and went back to his masquerading. She lacked the power to lead him from it, and again she feared that she lacked the power because her will was not sincere and single. Now they must go on to that uncertain end, he playing his part before the world, before her and Aunt Maria, she looking on, sometimes in admiration, sometimes in contempt, always in fear of the moment when the actor's speeches would be suddenly cut short and the curtain, falling on the interrupted scene, hide him for ever from the audience whom he had made wondering applauding partners in his counterfeit. The last of his life was to be like the rest of it, with the same elements of tragedy and of farce, of what attracted and of what revolted, of the great and the little. It was to be like in another way too; it was to be lived alone, without any true companion for his soul, without the love that he had not asked except of one, and, asking of that one, had not obtained. As the days went on, the fascination of the spectacle she watched grew on her; it was more poignant now than in the former time, and it filled all her life. Thus in some sort Alexander Quisante had his way; his hold on her was not relaxed, his dominion over her not abrogated, to the end of his life he would be what she told him he had been--almost everything. When the end came, what would he be? The question crossed her thoughts, but found no answer; some day it would fall to be answered. Now she could only watch and wait, half persuaded that the pretence was no pretence, yet always dreading the summons of reality to end the play. So the world asked in vain what May Quisante was thinking of, whether she wanted to kill him, or whether she thought him above all laws. A puzzle to the world and a puzzle to her friends, she waited for the falling of the blow which Quisante daily challenged. Sir Rufus Beaming met Dr. Claud Manton at the Athenaeum and showed him a newspaper paragraph. "To address a great meeting at Henstead!" said Manton, raising his brows and shaping his lips for a whistle. "'From his own and neighbouring constituencies.'" "He might just as well take chloroform comfortably by his fireside," said Sir Rufus. "It would be a little quicker, perhaps, but not a bit more sure." And again they washed their hands of the whole affair very solemnly. CHAPTER XIX. DEATH DEFIED.