“Dr. Vessinger, there is something I must say to you, all at once, now, and then you must go. You have made love to me,--yesterday evening,--and I listened. I was in great agony of mind, and so foolishly absorbed in my pain that I thought you--you understood what my trouble was. I wanted to escape from it--at any price. I was wild and bad. Now, well, you don’t understand; and I know, myself, I could not get any joy or give any, without him, little Oscar.” “I don’t understand,” Dr. Vessinger exclaimed, thoroughly mystified. “No, you don’t understand,” she admitted with cool irony. “Perhaps it is not necessary that you should. You doubtless see that I could not give you the pleasure you look for.” “I do not admit that for one moment,” he protested, rising. She held out her hand. “I was right--eight years ago; that is all, my friend.” He took her hand and held it, trying to come nearer, to melt the icy mood of the woman. She smiled pleasantly at him, unmoved, confident, and in another world of feeling than his. “You are not well,” he stammered, “not yourself!” “Who can tell what _is_ yourself? Last night I wanted the freedom of my youth. Now I am ready to take the other thing, which makes us old,--pain. Good-by.” He still held her hand, and she smiled at him, aloof. Just then a man’s voice sounded from inside the house, and Simmons poked his head out of the drawing-room window. “Oh! You here, Evelyn?” Perceiving Vessinger, he added gruffly: “Where is Jane or some one? I must be off to-night, and I want them to pack my bag and give me some dinner!” “How are you, Simmons?” the doctor called out in his cool manner. “Come out here and let’s have a look at you!” “I’m all right, Vessinger,” Simmons answered sulkily, stepping through the window. “That was a great performance you gave us last night, Simmons, a triumph! I never heard anything better. Your waving that glass over the Bellflower’s crown of false hair was magnificent!” Simmons glowered at the man and looked furtively at his wife. She seemed to be gazing at something at the other end of the lawn. “Oh!” Simmons muttered. “Damn nonsense!” His handsome face looked thin and pale, as if he had been paying well for his moments of forgetfulness. “Yes,” continued the doctor, with an insistence which seemed to Mrs. Simmons to be petty malice. “You were the success of the evening. Mrs. Bellflower ought to thank you for your parlor tricks.” “Oh! damn,” commented the harassed man, looking miserably toward his wife. She turned suddenly to the two men. “We have had enough of last night, haven’t we?” “So you’re off again?” the doctor persisted, seeking a new topic. “Yes, yes, long trip. God knows when I shall get back.” This last he muttered to himself. Vessinger did not hear it, but Mrs. Simmons looked quickly at her husband. He hung his head. “You--you are going away?” she asked in a low voice, forgetting the other man’s presence. “To leave me? Going to-night?”