She released her hand and sat staring down at the rug at her feet. It was a Senna prayer rug, beautiful in coloring and soft as an autumn twilight in the tones, but she was looking back into the past--its lost opportunities and forsaken shrines.... Presently her glance shifted to Lorraine--and lingered, speculatively, appraisingly, as though casting up the balances. It swept him slowly from head to foot, pausing long upon his face--so long, indeed, that he shifted uneasily and smiled in self defence. "Will you do it, Stephanie, dear?" he repeated. She slowly shook her head. "I cannot," she answered. "Why can't you, dear?" he asked. "Because I do not love you!" "What has that to do with the question?" he replied. "Neither do I know that I love you--we must try----" "I know," she interrupted; "you don't love me--and love is the one thing that could heal the wounds the past two years have made--for us both." "Do you love that scoundrel Amherst?" he asked. "I do not," was the calm answer--"and you have termed him rightly--he _is_ a scoundrel." "Do you love any other man?" "I do not!" looking him straight in the face. "Then let us try it, Stephanie," he said. But she shook her head again. "It is not just to you----" "Let me be the judge of that," he cut in. "Neither is it just to me," she ended. "You will take me back for the sake of appearances. You think to save me and yourself some temporary unpleasantness by obviating a divorce--by preventing scare headlines in the papers. You don't see that you would be making untold unpleasantness for us both through the remainder of our lives. When we are apart and need only the Court's severing decree, why should we assume a life of wretchedness for both? I bear the heavier burden now. I am content to bear it for a little while--until the world has forgotten--rather than to purchase that forgetfulness by a reconciliation which would be only in name--and scarcely in name, indeed." "Why should it be only in name?" he asked, leaning toward her. "It won't be with me, dear." "You are very good to say so," she replied--"but you'll think differently in a month--in a week possibly. Amherst will be ever between us--you will always see him; and as time passes you will see him only the more. Nothing we can do will remove him--he will be persistently present--you can't see me without thinking of him--and of what I did with him. And that can have only one result--renewed unhappiness for us both, and eventually the final break. Therefore why not let the break be now--when it is anticipated by every one and is so much easier for us both?" She might have added--what was in her mind--that with a man of strong and resolute purpose the experiment would not be so hazardous of success; but with one of his character the issue was not even doubtful--it would be decided before it was begun.