"No," she said aloud in a mournful voice; "his affection for me has been killed by my own mad folly. It cannot have survived all this deception. To-night is our last night together--the death of our love." At that moment Dudley re-entered, having exchanged his dinner-jacket for a white vest and dress-coat, in the lappel of which was a gardenia. Claudia roused herself quickly, and when she turned towards him her face betrayed no sign of the _tristesse_ of a moment before. "I'm quite ready," he said, as, after buttoning his gloves and his coat, he turned towards the door to open it. "This is my last visit to you, Dudley," she said, sighing deeply and gazing round the room with a lingering glance. "My presence here is no longer welcome." What could he reply? He only looked at her in silence. She was standing close to him, her pale face anxiously raised to his. He divined her unuttered request, and slowly bent until his lips met hers. Then she burst suddenly into tears. He put his arm tenderly round her waist saying what he could to console her, for her emotion distressed him. Complex as was her character, he saw that his plain, outspoken words had had their effect. When he had told her of his decision that morning at Albert Gate she had been defiant, treating the matter with utter unconcern; but now, as the result apparently of full reflection, she had become filled by a bitter remorse, and was penitent enough to beseech forgiveness. How little we men know of the true hearts of women! Could we but follow the whole course of feeling in the feminine mind; could we trace accurately the links that connect certain consequences with remote causes, which often render what we most condemn a necessity from which there was never a single chance of escape; could we, in short, see as a whole, and see it clearly, what at present our lack of the right vision causes us to see in part, and obscurely--all that tempted to wrong, all that blinded to right--we should not then presume to theorise so glibly; to set ourselves up as accusers, judges, executioners, in such unbecoming haste. We should have mercy upon women, as befits honest men. At heart Dudley Chisholm loved the woman he was striving to comfort, even though his association with her had so nearly wrecked his chance of succeeding in an official career. But he hated the artificiality of the smarter set; he detested the fickleness of the flirt; and he had been sadly disillusioned by the gossip that had of late sprung up in connection with the woman who for so long had represented his ideal. He would have forgiven her without further parley had it not been for the knowledge that vengeance was already close behind him, and that before long she must be left without his love and protection. His secret caused him to preserve silence; but she, ignorant of the truth, believed that the spell she had exercised so long was at last broken.