"I know it, dear," she says, very gently. "Is it not hard for me too?" "You are so cold, so different, and then you have your home, your husband, your----. Oh, forgive me, darling! How could I be so thoughtless?" He sees the spasm of pain on the white face, the sudden quiver of the soft red lips. "I--I have nothing now!" she groans, despairingly, and her two hands go up to hide her face. A storm of passionate weeping shakes her from head to foot. Keith is alarmed, distressed, but he is wise enough to rise and stand quietly by. He attempts no consolation. The storm abates at last. Those tears have done Lauraine good. She has been cold and hard in her grief for so long a time. She also rises, a little ashamed, a little confused. "Let us go out on the balcony," she says, and he follows her without a word. It seems like a dream to him; a dream that will never be forgotten, that will haunt his memory with a vivid thrill of pain whenever he feels the scents of mountain air, or sees the gleam of quiet stars. With them, too, he will see the little balcony of the quaint old "Hof," and a slender figure with draperies of dusky black, and a face white, solemn, inexpressibly sad that looks back to his. "Keith," she says, very gently, "there has come a time when I must be frank with you. You say you do not forget, that you cannot. In that case, if you have any honour at all, you must see that you should avoid me. Of myself, of my pain, I will not speak. What use? Between us two lies a barrier we can never cross. When you say such words to me as you have said to-night, you make the very question of friendship an impossibility. Is there any thought in our minds that in any way is cold enough for _that_. I doubt it. Mind, I say 'ours.' I make no pretence at deceiving you." "You do not deny that you love me?" "Of what use?" she says. "I made a fatal error in my marriage. But error or not, I must keep to it and its consequences. Only, Keith, if you had any pity, and mercy, you would avoid me, leave me to fight out my life alone. At least I owe my husband--fidelity." A hundred words rush to his lips. It is in his mind then to tell her of what her husband really is; of the scandals that are whispered in club and boudoir, over cigarettes and Souchong, but something restrains him. It would be mean, he thinks; and, after all, would it make any difference to her? Had she been any other woman.... And, after all, she loves _him_, not her husband. On that small crumb of comfort he feeds his starved and aching heart, standing there beside her, silent, troubled, fighting against every wild and passionate impulse that bids him fling honour and scruples to the wind, and snatch at the perilous joy of a sinful happiness.