"Oh, Edith! I do so hunger for your love," he urged again. "Can you not give me a little for all this love of mine? Oh, my darling! if you can only give me back a hundredth part of my love for you, I shall be satisfied." She turned her head--as if to conceal her emotion, but really to hide a smile that she could not altogether suppress, having a strong sense of the ridiculous--and said, in accents of piteous pleading: "Don't! don't, Tom!--don't take advantage of my weakness." "Then you _do_ love me?" he cried, passionately. "It is cruel of you to force me to confess my feelings. Oh, Tom!--I can't help it!--now you know all!--I _do_ love you!" * * * * * She had still a few pretty scruples which she allowed him to talk her out of gradually. It was very wrong, she urged, for her to accept him as a lover--she a married woman!--her husband still alive! But the eloquent barrister managed to persuade her to the contrary. It was a grotesque burlesque of love at which these two were playing. She, of course, felt no love whatever for the man. Love was a sentiment unknown to her, though she had the voluptuous nature of a Messalina. She also knew that his was not a real unselfish love for her. He himself was more or less conscious of this latter fact. This new intrigue disappointed him in a way; he instinctively felt that there was something wrong about this pretty woman--that her society would probably do him more harm than good. His affection for her was passionate enough, but it would not bear analysis--and he knew it--being made up as it was of equal parts of lust and vanity. A man who has gone mad over a girl in this way will squander everything he has on her, not because he loves her, not even spending it so as to benefit her, but merely in display--in suppers, dress, and folly, whereby the vanity of both is gratified. A very selfish love after all is this quasi-love of a man, however fierce, however self-devoted it appear; and women of the world such as the Riley know this well. Little wonder, then, that they laugh at their admirers behind their back; and determine to fleece them well before the inevitable weariness comes, and the men go off in search of newer loves. These two contrived, however, to get on very well together, and their intimacy continued for month after month, involving much expenditure of hard cash on his side, of sighs and lies on hers. The infatuation of the man increased. He would have thrown away his all, nay, his life, for this woman. He became her very slave; and yet all the while he felt that she was not a good woman; he was ashamed of his ignoble passion. Disgusted at his own folly, he took to drink again; he broke through his resolution of reform, and, turning his face round, began to retrace his steps down the hill--this time never to come back.