“There are people in the garden,” he said quietly. He screwed up his eyes, and looked at her exactly as if she were a “subject,”--and a difficult one, as she thought afterwards. “Now, please listen to me,” he went on, with a little gentle pressure of the hands pushing her into a seat. “I have been thinking---- ” “Oh, dear!” she murmured, like a spoilt child. She was so acutely conscious that any reflection on his part was likely to mean a conclusion inimical to her peace. The moment he thought about it, he would be sure to see how wrong and impossible the whole situation was. “I am a careless fellow,” Rivers proceeded to say, “and my head is generally full of my own work, to the exclusion of everything else.... I can’t say I ever thought about it, but I have heard something to-day--Mr. Popham made an absurd suggestion to me--which shows me that I am very stupidly compromising you by my presence here.” Mrs. Elles interrupted him with vehemence, stung by his generosity in putting it so. “Indeed no, it is I who am the interloper! It is I who ought to go--and I will!” She drew herself up proudly. “You to go! Why, your picture isn’t anything like finished.” “The picture is a minor matter, compared with--” “It is quite the most important thing in the world,” she rejoined, with a little touch of irony, bitterly aware that to him it was so, indeed. Then her spirit oozed away, and she said, weakly, “No, no, it is for me to go, of course--but, oh, we were so happy! Why must you make me---- ” “I don’t make you go--of course not!” he said irritably. “I intend to go myself. Did I not say so?” “Nonsense,” she answered, quite rudely, in her extreme anguish. “That would be no good at all. Besides, do you suppose I should care to be here at all--unless you were?” She uttered the crude fact recklessly, imperiously, contemptuously almost. Surely he must see; she had nothing to conceal from him now! She hid her face in her hands a moment after, and tried to leave the room, but Rivers caught her to him as she passed. “Then, for God’s sake, don’t go!” he said, tearing her hands down from her face. With one quick look at him as he sat across the chair holding her body, she flung her arms round his neck, and returned his embrace with all the passion and abandonment of one doomed. Married to one man and beloved of another, she felt herself to be so. A look in Rivers’ eyes had warned her that Alastor’s asceticism was only skin deep; a mysterious, material rapport was established between them. She felt as if she had known him all her life. “It is all right, then, if you care for me,” he said, in a matter-of-fact voice. “What do you suppose it was that Mr. Popham wanted to-day? He wanted to marry us, by way of looking after the morals of his parish!” He laughed; he was gay. Even she had never dreamed that he could be so charming! She removed herself a few paces away from him, and stood, sobbing convulsively. “Oh, forgive me, forgive me!” she repeated.