Bitter as spurge was that old story of hers now, and bitterer still the only moral lesson it now appeared to her to have. Oh, no doubt there was a deal to say for their conventional morality, but a pretty moral lesson it was, after all, that you repented of a history with one man only when it forbade a second history with another! And she swore again that that first history should not have stood in her way; more, far more than that was his own headstrong virtue, and perhaps that was not all either. She had been born for him, she knew it; he had had never a secret from her save those large open secrets that scarce a woman shared with a man yet; his hands, that could take life for love, were made to hold her. She knew it in her soul.... But huge as it was, he didn't see it. He allowed a pretty face to blind him to it all. "Oh, come, come!" she had called to him on the only night, of all those nights, when he and she had walked together; and his answer had been to take himself away. When she had kissed his shoulder she had merely kissed the spot where another woman's head had lain. Oh, if that slander _could_ only have been true! She looked at, and almost tossed aside unread, a letter that came for her in the morning. Not for a single moment had she slept, and she wanted no letter from Roy--for it was from Roy. Still she might as well read it. She did so. Billy Izzard was with him; it had come out that Billy knew her, and he wanted to see her. "I've come back for you," the letter said, "and I'm not going to let you go this time. Do write when I can come and see you. Off out now, but do write." She threw it into the fire. Marry Roy? She would far rather commit another sin than such a reparation. The trouble was that she could not commit the sin. That morning she was sent for by Jim. As she turned the handle of his door she was ready to make a bet with herself about what he wanted her for. She was not mistaken. He wanted to thank her for showing his wife round the day before. His wife--always and for ever his wife. "If you feel that you must----" she said, biting her lip with humiliation and passion. "It's merely----" he rumbled heavily on.... As if she needed to be told what it "merely" was! If he cared to hear it _she_ could tell _him_ what was "merely" the matter with his wife! "Oh, must you?" she said, quivering under the torture. He was playing nervously with a pen. "Must I what?" he said, not looking up. "Must you do this?" He looked up. "Shut the door," he said. "Now----" She listened to him almost scornfully. Again harping on that informal execution, as if he had been right and not right, and as if it now mattered one straw whether he "told his wife" or not! He was saying something about a doctor; the doctor, Louie gathered, had said she mustn't have another shock; what had Louie--always and for ever Louie--to say to _that_? Louie clutched at her skirt with both hands. "Don't you know?" she said, clenching the skirt hard.