"You've known for months and years--known that there was someone," Esmé repeated; her red lips drew away from her white teeth as she sat, stunned. So Bertie had believed her a light woman, untrue to him, a creature vending her beauty to some man. That, too, the consequence of her deceiving, of her folly. She sat still, a stricken thing, her eyes alone alive in her face. "That, I suppose, was why you changed to me," she whispered, in a curious metallic voice. "That was why I ceased to love you--to live with you as your husband," he said simply and very sadly. "That too!" The words rasped from between her white teeth, and suddenly she laughed--a hopeless, mirthless laugh, coming in noisy gusts; laughed, sitting there, white and haggard, until the laughter changed to gulping, sobbing gasps. "Don't, Esmé, don't," he cried. "Don't laugh like that." She got up, her rich dress trailing round her thin limbs, the fire of her jewels catching the gleams from the electric light. "So you won't let me divorce you?" she said. "Well, find my fellow-sinner if you can, and for the present say good-night to Mrs Cain." Still laughing, she moved slowly across the room, and into her own; shut the door quietly behind her. "That too!" she said. "Cut by Society; suspected by her husband." Oh, poor Esmé, just because she was a selfish, wicked fool. Poor Esmé--who was once so happy. "Marie, I ... have you heard me? Marie--come!" And then, for the first time, Esmé fainted; sank into a merciful blackness, lay cold and still, until Marie found her. Estelle had decked her room with flowers; had put on a soft gown, when a messenger brought her a letter. "Estelle, I will not come. You are not a woman for a selfish man to drag down. It is good-bye, and not good-bye for me, for I shall never lose sight of your dear face; but for you, you are a girl--young--forget me. Marry someone you can like; don't leave your life empty. Let home and the kiddies be the cloth to wipe my memory out with. Estelle, I've woken you. I speak from man to woman, plainly. Go to your mother, and marry, for thwarted nature leads to strange miseries. Good-bye, Estelle. Last night Esmé spoke out, and I saw where I was taking you to, and I'll not do it. My place is here, to save my wife, for who am I to prate of morality?" Estelle read the letter, folded it up; the world was empty, swept clear of love and hope and tenderness. Very quietly she went to her writing-table, sat down there. "I have just got your letter," she wrote. "You are right, but one word. People believe that Esmé took, or got, jewels of Lady Blakeney's and sold them at Benhusan's and elsewhere. Her money comes from this source, they say. That is why people have cut her. I could not tell you before, and I was wrong. I do not believe it, but think that they were given to her by Denise Blakeney, and that there is some secret between them. Estelle." She sent the letter by a cab.