"An expression of virtuous indignation isn't becoming in you, Fenton," Rangely said to him one day. "Especially in a discussion which you started yourself by the most shocking piece of wickedness I ever heard." And among all the Pagans there existed a yet unspoken feeling that Fenton was ceasing to be one of them. On returning from Helen's, Edith found her husband still engaged with Dr. Ashton, but as soon as the latter had gone Arthur came to her room. "Well," he said, sinking leisurely into a chair. "Do you feel any milder? Have you had your dinner?" "Yes," she returned, not leaving her seat on the opposite side of the room. "I have been dining with Mrs. Ashton." "What!" cried Arthur, as if a bomb had exploded at his feet. Then he sank back into his languid position. "So she has told you," he remarked carelessly. "Yes, she has told me. Did you know, Arthur, when you brought us together, that she was living under a false name, and under false pretenses?" "I knew certainly," replied her husband with a coolness that marked his inward irritation, "that her legal name was Ashton. I have still to learn that she is living under false pretenses." "Is it not false," retorted Edith, with difficulty controlling her voice, her indignation increasing with every word, "to pass as widow, to live separated from her husband?" "Oh, false? Why, in your stiff, conventional definition of the word that calls the letter every thing, the spirit nothing, I dare say it is false; but what of that? She has a right to do as she pleases, has she not?" Edith drew herself back in her chair and looked at him across the dimly lighted chamber. It is but justice to her husband to consider that he could not dream of the anguish she suffered. It was, as he so often said, a question of standards. By his, she was narrow, uncharitable, even bigoted; tried by the code of more orthodox circles she was simply high-minded, true and noble in her devotion to principle. She was neither bigoted nor prudish, however the alien circumstances in which she was placed made her appear so. To her it was a vital question of right and purity of which Arthur disposed with such contemptuous lightness. True as the sunlight herself, no pang could be more bitter than the knowledge that the truth was not sacred to the man she loved. Her husband's words pierced her like a dagger. It was some minutes before she answered him. He rose moodily, lit a cigar at the gas jet and sat down again before she broke the silence. "Arthur," she said in a voice which was sad and full of the solemnity of deep feeling, "have you no regard for truth?" "Truth!" retorted he. "To go back to Pilate's conundrum, 'What is truth?' If you mean a strict and fantastic adherence to facts and to stiff conventional rules, no, I haven't the slightest regard for truth. If you mean the eternal verities as a man's own nature and the occasion interpret them, yes, I have the highest."