"That is what your love was, then--a lie, a shameful lie?" "It wasn't; no, Mary, it was real! I cared for you--I did; the thing is forced on me!" "'Cared'? when you use your liberty like this? You 'cared'? And I pitied you--you wrung the soul of me with your despair--I forgave you keeping back the tale so long. I came to you to be your wife, and you went down on your knees and vowed you hadn't had the courage to tell me before, but your wife was living--some awful woman you couldn't divorce. I gave myself to you, I became the thing you can turn out of doors, all because I loved you, all because I believed in your love for me." She caught at her throat. "You deserved it, didn't you?--you justify it now so nobly, the faith that has made me a ----" "Mary!" "Oh, I can say it!" she burst forth hysterically. "I _am_, you know; you have made me one--you and your 'love'! Why shouldn't I say it?" "I told you the truth; if I had been free at that time----" "When did you hear the news of the death? Answer me--it wasn't to-night?" "What's the difference," he muttered, "when I heard?" "Oh!" she moaned, "go away from me, don't come near me! You coward!" She sank on to the edge of the sofa, rocking herself to and fro. The man roamed aimlessly around. Once or twice he glanced across at her, but she paid no heed. His pipe was on the sideboard; he filled it clumsily, and drew at it in nervous pulls. He was the first to speak again. "I know I seem a hound, I know it all looks very bad; but I don't suppose there's a man in five hundred who would refuse such an opportunity, for all that. No, nor one in five thousand, either! You won't see it in an unprejudiced light, of course; but it seems to me--yes, it does, and I can't help saying so--that if you were really as fond of me as you think, if my interests were really dear to you, you yourself 'd counsel me to leap at the chance, and, what's more, feel honestly glad that a prospect of success had come in my way.... You know what it means to me," he went on querulously; "you have been in the profession--at least, as good as in the profession--three years; you know that, in the ordinary course of events, I should never get any higher than I am, never play in London in my life. You know I've gone as far as I can ever expect to go without influence to back me, that in ten years' time I should be exactly what I am now, a leading-man for second-rate tours; and that ten years later I should be playing heavy fathers, or Lord knows what, still on the road, and done for--the fire all spent, wasted and worn out in the provinces. That's what it would be; you've heard me say it again and again; and I should go on seeing Miss Somebody's son, and Mr. Somebody-else's-daughter, with their parents' names to get them the engagements, playing prominent business in London theatres before they've learnt how to walk across a stage. Miss Westland's a fine-looking girl, and she knows a lot of