“I have no justification--none,” she said. “I was just wickedly selfish. Even if he’d been illegitimate I could not be excused. Illegitimate!” She smiled bitterly. “Thank God I’ve had no children since I married Raytham! He was not keen about children, or about me for the matter of that. Our married life has been a sort of--modified celibacy!” She took down a photograph from a mantelshelf and looked at it. “This is Mr. Coldwell, isn’t it?” Leslie nodded. “It would be a great feather in his cap if he--arrested me for bigamy.” “Mr. Coldwell is not frantically keen on feathers of that kind, Jane,” said the girl loyally. Jane put down the photograph and dropped into the nearest armchair, curling her legs up under her. “I’m a beast! I’m putting the worst construction on everything; taking the most uncharitable view of everybody.” She smiled pitifully, reached out her hand for her bag that lay on the table, and snapped open a diamond-encrusted cigarette case. “I tried drugging once,” she said; “a white powder you sniff up your nose. For some reason it made me deathly sick, and I didn’t pursue the practice. But I envy people who can find relief and forgetfulness.” “Another good way,” said Leslie brutally, “is to put your head on a railway track when a large, fat freight train is due! You’d accomplish the same result, and give much less trouble to other people. And presently, when your boy emerges from the mist, as he will, he would come to a mother who was hardly worth finding.” Jane was laughing quietly. “You’re a weird girl. How old are you?” Leslie told her. “I wish Peter was in love with you. He must find happiness somewhere or other.” “Do I come into this?” asked Leslie dryly. “Or are Peter and you the only two people in the world whose feelings count?” She stopped Jane’s penitence with a laughing gesture. “I’ll tell you something, Jane. I’m rather in love with Peter; do you feel faint?” “I’m not a little bit faint.” But Jane was more than a little bit curious. “You’re not jesting?” “I decided this morning that I was very much in love with him,” said Leslie calmly, “but I’ve thought a long time about it, and have reached the conclusion that it is rather my maternal instinct that is operating. I’m loving him in a motherly fashion, in fact. Sooner or later that boy of yours is going to be found, and then you’ve got to go to your husband and tell him the truth.” She was watching Jane’s face closely, ready to note and spring upon the first visible sign of repugnance. But Jane was listening; and listening, the girl realized her heart sinking with approval. “And then Lord Raytham must give you up, and Peter and you must start afresh.” Here was the first note of dissent. Jane shook her head.