the recollection of the old days came back the shadow of the old sensation. The interval was forgotten for the moment. She saw before her the man whose every glance and word had thrilled her with pleasurable emotion, whom it had been a joy just to be with and see. It was the same man leaning there, fine of form and feature, with a dreamy look in his blue eyes softening the glitter which was apt to be hard and stony. If only--At that moment Colonel Colquhoun looked round at her, hesitated, although his face flushed, and then exclaimed: "Evadne, you _do_ love me!" "I _did_ love you," she answered. He sat down beside her, close to her: "Will you forget all this?" he said. "Will you forget my past; will you make me a different man? Will you? You can." He half stretched out his hand to take hers, but then drew back, a gentleman always in that he would not force her inclinations in any way. "If I do not change, we can be again as we are now, and there would be no harm done. Will you consent, Evadne, will you--my wife--will you?" He leant forward so close that her senses were troubled--too close, for she pushed her chair back to relieve herself of the oppression, and the act irritated him. Another moment, a little more persuasion and caressing of the voice, which he could use so well to that effect, and she might have given in to the kind of fascination which she had felt in his presence from the first; but when she moved he drew back too, his countenance clouded, and her own momentary yearning to be held close, close; to be kissed till she could not think; to live the intoxicating life of the senses only, and not care, was over. "We could never be again as we are now," she answered. "There would be no return for me. A wife cannot feel as I do. And you--you would not change. Or at least you would only change your habits; the consequences of them you will carry to your grave with you, and I doubt if you could ever change your habits once for all. You were a different man for a while when I first came out, but you soon relapsed. No. I can never regret my present attitude; but I have seen several times already how much reason I should have to regret--a different arrangement." "You make light of love," he said. "Many a girl has died of a disappointment." "Many a girl is a fool," she answered placidly. "And what can love offer me in exchange for the calm content of my life just now? for my perfect health? for my freedom from care?" "A reconciliation with your family," he suggested. She sighed, and sat silent a little, lost in thought. "I do not live with my family now," she answered at last. "They have all their own interests, their own loves, apart from mine; would a letter or two a year from them make up after all for the risk of misery I should be running--for the terrible, helpless, hopeless, incurable misery of an unhappily married woman, if I should become one?"