The heart of Regina was sick within her. She knew she was deceiving Alfred; she felt herself to be the basest and blackest and most ungrateful woman that had ever been born into the world, and yet, she told herself, her deception was a harmless one, that if she was sinning against him, she was sinning to a good end. And so Regina entered upon her course of penal servitude, for I can call it nothing more or less. The same explanation which was given to Alfred was given to Julia, and henceforth Regina, although she ate at the same table, ate alone. She did not in any way attempt to curtail the meals of her husband and child, but supplied the table in exactly the usual manner. "Why do you buy salmon when you can't touch it yourself?" Alfred asked over and over again. "Because you work hard and want your meals. If you had the same necessity for living as I do, I should keep you up to it." "I don't believe you would buy salmon for yourself," said Alfred, almost vexedly; "it must be a temptation to you, so fond of it as you are." "Oh, no, because I have an object in view. Believe me, I often have sweetbreads for lunch." "But you do not fling them in my face at dinner; that is quite another matter." So the martyrdom went on, and Regina's figure became smaller by degrees and beautifully less. When she had been dieting for about two months she had lost a couple of stones in weight. She had a couple of smart gowns from Madame d'Estelle in which she had allowed that adroit lady free play for her taste and imagination. The result was that she gradually presented to the eyes of her family a subdued and refined Regina, much more attractive to the outer world, but not the Regina to whom the inhabitants of Ye Dene had been accustomed. It was about two months from the beginning of Regina's martyrdom that Alfred Whittaker began to be aware that his wife was losing flesh. "My dear," he said one morning, as he sat opposite his wife at the breakfast-table, "I'm not quite satisfied with that doctor of yours." "Why not, dear?" "Why, I don't think he's doing well by you." "But I am so much better." "You don't look it; you're half the size you were." "Oh, no, Alfred! There's still plenty of me." "You are much smaller, and since you have taken to wearing black and indefinable gray gowns, you seem to be wasting away to nothing. When is it going to stop?" "When he is satisfied that I am just the right weight. I am much stronger, Alfred; I can walk miles!" "Can you? Well, I don't know that it is necessary for you to walk miles; you can afford to take a cab whenever you want one." "Yes, dear, but I am much better." "I know you say so, and you've been awfully plucky about your diet and so on, but when is it going to end? I don't want a wife like a thread paper."