"I feel that Mary has entrapped me, and I hate her. I know she has good qualities--heaps of them--but I can't see them. I only know that the mere touch of her hand curdles my blood. She excites absolute physical repulsion in me; I can't help it. I know it's madness to marry her, but I can't do anything else. I daren't inflict a second time the humiliation and misery upon her, or the unhappiness upon my people." Mrs. Wallace now was serious. "And do you really care for anyone else?" He turned savagely upon her. "You know I do. You know I love you with all my heart and soul. You know I've loved you passionately from the first day I saw you. Didn't you feel, even when we were separated, that my love was inextinguishable? Didn't you feel it always with you? Oh, my dear, my dear, you must have known that death was too weak to touch my love! I tried to crush it, because neither you nor I was free. Your husband was my friend. I couldn't do anything blackguardly. I ran away from you. What a fool you must have thought me! And now I know that at last we were both free, I might have made you love me. I had my chance of happiness at last; what I'd longed for, cursing myself for treachery, had come to pass. But I never knew. In my weakness I surrendered my freedom. O God! what shall I do?" He hid his face in his hands and groaned with agony. Mrs. Wallace was silent for a while. "I don't know if it will be any consolation for you," she said at last; "you're sure to know sooner or later, and I may as well tell you now. I'm engaged to be married." "What!" cried James, springing up. "It's not true; it's not true!" "Why not? Of course it's true!" "You can't--oh, my dearest, be kind to me!" "Don't be silly, there's a good boy! You're going to be married yourself in a month, and you really can't expect me to remain single because you fancy you care for me. I shouldn't have told you, only I thought it would make things easier for you." "You never cared two straws for me! I knew that. You needn't throw it in my face." "After all, I was a married woman." "I wonder how much you minded when you heard your husband was lying dead on the veldt?" "My dear boy, he wasn't; he died of fever at Durban--quite comfortably, in a bed." "Were you sorry?" "Of course I was! He was extremely satisfactory--and not at all exacting." James did not know why he asked the questions; they came to his lips unbidden. He was sick at heart, angry, contemptuous. "I'm going to marry a Mr. Bryant--but, of course, not immediately," she went on, occupied with her own thoughts, and pleased to talk of them. "What is he?" "Nothing! He's a landed proprietor." She said this with a certain pride.