Virginia would have been less than human if she had not thrilled at the thought that he must regret it. She felt that he did. He had already almost said so. He had been caught; she knew it! What woman, placed as Virginia was, would not have felt that! In the rush of sympathy for him she blamed only Fanchon. She remembered the night at the Sunday-school hall and Fanchon’s blanched face at the sight of Corwin. Corwin had made Virginia shudder; but such men as this had been Fanchon’s associates, such men as Corwin had been part of her life, and William Carter had unwittingly married her! In the storm of her resentment, Virginia felt only that William needed her sympathy, he even needed--it was on the tip of her tongue to say--her love! Then the thing suddenly stood out before her; she saw it in all its horrible nakedness and cruelty. The poor little wayward dancer caught in the snare of her past--whatever that past might be--and in the midst of her fancied security assailed and ruined, snatched from her new happiness, talked about, shamed, and at last cast out! Yet--poor William! Tears rushed to Virginia’s eyes. Her heart yearned over him. At that moment, when William was breaking with the wife that he had preferred to her, when he was crushed by the scandal that the woman had made of his life, Virginia forgave him. She sank down on the piano-stool under his childish picture, and, covering her face with her hands, she wept--not for herself, as Fanchon had done, but for William. She had fought hard to crush out her love for him, but at that moment she felt that she had not succeeded, that it was too strong for her, and she trembled. She trembled at the thought of the look on his face when she had seen him last. She knew that he had come back to her. Virginia, who could not see into the future, still felt a thrill of terror at her heart. It was as if an invisible power walked with her, an invisible hand thrust her toward unforeseen perils, and into ways that she knew not. Strangely enough, too, in the midst of her emotion, the thought came to her, keenly and vividly--what would Dan think of it? And of her--Virginia? In some way, intuitively, for he had said nothing about it, she knew that Daniel’s attitude toward Fanchon had changed. Something in the very intonation of his voice had told her that; yet he had announced the separation without comment, and had even appeared to assent to Colonel Denbigh’s suppressed recognition of Fanchon’s culpability.