"That's not what he meant. But I've thought of that too--on baby's account. I guess he would if I were set on it. But we're both doing well single, and--" She stopped and laughed sarcastically--"and supposing we didn't like each other and got divorced, I could never marry anyone else." "No matter about that now, Loretta. Do you love him still?" "It's love that makes the world go round. There isn't much else worth living for, I guess." She pursed her lips after this enigmatical answer, then suddenly relaxed them in an impetuous outburst. "One thing's sure, Constance Stuart, you don't know what love is or you'd never have sent away Gordon Perry, Esq., Counsellor-at-Law." "Don't, Loretta," said Constance, imploringly. "It's true." "I love him with all my heart. You don't understand." "Pish! If you'd loved him as a woman loves a man when she does love him, you'd have been married before this. Why, there's times when I feel like going right back to my man, and I'm not what you'd call more than moderately fond of him. If it hadn't been that I didn't want to disappoint her--and you--I'd have done it before this. Now the next time he comes back, I shouldn't wonder if I did." She leaned back again on the sofa with her hands behind her head nodding doggedly, and nursing her intention. Constance, appalled, went over and sat down beside her. "Oh, but you mustn't, you mustn't! Go to-morrow to see Mrs. Wilson and talk with her. She will give you strength and convince you that unless you marry him such a course would be suicide, a cruel wrong to yourself, dear--you who have done so well." "I've kept straight chiefly to suit her; but I don't like what she has done to you." "Please leave me and my affairs out of the question, Loretta. They have nothing to do with your preserving your own self-respect." "I don't know about that. If she's just like the rest; if that's a sample of the religion and the beauty she prides herself on, I've been fooled, you've been fooled. What's the use of being respectable if, when true love does come, a poor, deserted woman is robbed of it for such a reason as that?" It surprised Constance that Loretta should take sides so strongly, and she perceived that the girl must have a tenderer feeling for her than she had supposed. This made her all the more anxious to protect her. "I value your sympathy very much, dear, but it won't help me--it'll only make me dreadfully unhappy if you do wrong." Loretta looked at her keenly. Then she took out a small phial, similar to that which Constance had observed on another occasion, and swallowed a pellet ostentatiously. "If you are troubled with the blues these are the things to take. They brace one splendid." "What are they, Loretta?"