Hera understood as she had not until then how desperate was the strait to which her refusal had brought him. For a moment she did not answer the entreaty in his eyes. She walked to the open window and looked out on the night. Tarsis had planned shrewdly in keeping this for the last card to play. In her state of mind it was the one appeal that could have the effect he desired. To Hera the offer did seem the only way that remained of serving honor as well as saving herself from what she contemplated as a loathsome degradation. The inevitable misery of the sort of relation he proposed rose before her mind; but of her happiness she thought no more, so eager was she to mitigate in some degree the wrong of which she perceived he must be the greater victim. Presently Tarsis was at her side again, saying: “Will you do this? Be my wife only in name. On these terms, if you will, you may redeem your promise--you may save me.” And wishing to do that--wishing to save him, to do him justice--swayed, too, by pity for him and remorse for her broken promise, and crushed in spirit by her disappointment in Mario--she yielded. “There is no other way,” she said, turning to him, wearily--“no other way to screen you--to meet the demand of honor.” He caught up her hand and kissed it. “You will never regret this act of justice,” he said, confident that his complete triumph was only a matter of time. Perhaps he betrayed the working of his mind in some unguarded gleam of the eye, some play of the lip, for she said to him, her manner showing grave determination: “Don’t think I shall change--that you can swerve me in the least from this position. You must foster no false hopes. When I become your wife I shall remain to the last only that in appearance--in the eyes of the world. In reality I shall be as far removed from you as if I were actually married to another. I tell you this as emphatically as possible, because it is only just that you clearly understand what our marriage will mean to both.” “All is quite clear,” Tarsis returned, cunningly. “Oh, it is a terrible deed!” she exclaimed, the consequences rising to her mind and filling it with horror. “Think well, I beg of you. In despoiling me of my life’s happiness you are going to ruin your own. Perhaps you did not think I should make the conditions so absolute, so irrevocable. If you wish to withdraw your offer do so, and save us from a lot that can not fail to be one of misery so long as we both are alive.”