"Did you call?" he said, quietly. "Are you ill?" He came and stood beside her. "No," she said, hoarsely, and she sat up and gazed fixedly at him. Despair and suspense were in her eyes. There was no change in his, and she remembered that she had never seen him angry. Perhaps she had not known when he was angry. He was turning away, but she stopped him. "Wait," she said, and he returned, his cold, attentive eye upon her. There was no contempt, no indignation in his bearing. If those feelings had shaken him, it must have been some time ago. If they had been met and vanquished in secret, that also must have been some time ago. He took up an _Imitation of Christ_, bound in the peculiar shade of lilac which at that moment prevailed, and turned it in his hand. "You are overwrought," he said, after a moment's pause, "and I particularly dislike a scene." She did not heed him. "I listened at the door," she said, in a harsh, unnatural voice. "I am perfectly aware of it." A sort of horror seemed to have enveloped the familiar room. The very furniture looked like well-known words arranged suddenly in some new and dreadful meaning. "You never loved me," she said. He did not answer, but he looked gravely at her for a moment, and she was ashamed. "Why don't you divorce me if you think me so wicked?" "For the sake of the children," he said, with a slight change of voice. Teddy, the eldest, had been born in this room. Did either remember that gray morning six years ago? There was a silence that might be felt. "Who drew the short lighter?" she whispered, before she knew that she had spoken. "I am not here to answer questions," he replied. "And I have asked none. Neither, you will observe, have I blamed you. But I desire that you will never again allude to this subject, and that you will keep in mind that I do not intend to discuss it with you." He laid down the _Imitation_ and moved towards his own room. With a sudden movement she flung herself upon her knees before him and caught his arm. The attitude suggested an amateur. "Which drew the short lighter?" she gasped, her small upturned face white and convulsed. "You will know in five months' time," he said. Then he extricated himself from her trembling clasp and left the room, closing the door quietly behind him. CHAPTER IV For the sin ye do by two and two ye must pay for one by one! --RUDYARD KIPLING. When Hugh awoke the morning after Lady Newhaven's party the day was already far advanced. A hot day had succeeded to a hot night. For a few seconds he lay like one emerging from the influence of morphia, who feels his racked body still painlessly afloat on a sea of rest, but is conscious that it is drifting back to the bitter shores of pain, and who stirs neither hand nor foot for fear of hastening the touch of the encircling, aching sands on which he is so soon to be cast in agony once more.