Lady Geraldine got up to walk away. Suddenly she turned and flung herself at Travers’s feet, saying: ‘Oh, don’t let us talk or think about the hateful money! Act if you like, if you find it so profitable, but don’t, don’t leave England. Cut yourself free from that woman. I will do anything you like. I love you wildly, desperately. I cannot, cannot leave you.’ He gently disengaged her fingers. She rose on her knees and looked him straight in the eyes. Then she cried out-- ‘You don’t love me the least little bit in the world. Why is it? Am I not beautiful enough? Haven’t you told me a hundred times I was? O George, George, tell me what is the meaning of it all!’ ‘It means I love you too well to wish to injure you.’ ‘Then you do not love me at all. Is it that you love this other woman, this wife of yours?’ ‘Perhaps; I can’t tell what it is.’ ‘I will sit down quietly by your side now; I won’t rave at you any more, don’t be afraid. Tell me exactly what you feel.’ She stood for a moment, then put her hand in her pocket, took out her handkerchief, then sat down, holding it in her lap. ‘Now tell me, dear one,’ and she laid her hand on his arm. He shuddered a little. She noticed it and removed her hand. ‘What do you feel about her and me?’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I think it must be this. When I fell in love with her, I did so in the terrible blind, reckless way that only comes over one once in a lifetime. It is more a nightmare than anything else. I couldn’t understand myself at the time, and I can’t understand myself now.’ ‘Oh, you have got over it, then?’ she said, leaning towards him. ‘Yes, I have got over it. I am sickened of love. But my wife is a clever woman. I believe I can do something with her. She has a most extraordinary talent for acting, and that interests me. I don’t suppose there is a man alive, take it all in all, who knows more about the tricks of the trade than I do. These are just what she wants to be taught, and it is interesting to me to see what she’ll turn out. This feeling has taken the place of love. She is about as tired of love-making as I am, and now we are going to set seriously to work together.’ ‘But if you are so tired of love, why are you here to-night? Did you think you would get money out of me to go to America with her?’ He laughed a little. ‘Well, it does sound absurd now you put it like that, but I suppose I did.’ She was sitting to his right. Her fingers closed on something that had been hidden in her handkerchief; then came the loud report of a pistol, a puff of smoke, a groan from Travers as he fell sideways with a crash in a heap among the brackens. Lady Geraldine sat perfectly motionless for a moment; then she saw the blood beginning ooze from the wound just over his heart, and she drew her dress carefully on one side. She did not look at his face for about five minutes. She turned round then, and saw his eyes fixed on her with a terrible stare.