Her lips parted. She panted lightly. “You’ve heard me speak of Sybill Foster?” Her voice came stammering, “N-no, Stephen. Did you?” “Well, I didn’t mean to, till I knew it was all right. I only heard yesterday.” “Heard what?” “Why, that she’ll have me. Oh, Harriott—do you know what it’s like to be terribly happy?” She knew. She had known just now, the moment before he told her. She sat there, stone-cold and stiff, listening to his raptures; listening to her own voice saying she was glad. Ten years passed. * * * * * Harriott Leigh sat waiting in the drawing-room of a small house in Maida Vale. She had lived there ever since her father’s death two years before. She was restless. She kept on looking at the clock to see if it was four, the hour that Oscar Wade had appointed. She was not sure that he would come, after she had sent him away yesterday. She now asked herself, why, when she had sent him away yesterday, she had let him come to-day. Her motives were not altogether clear. If she really meant what she had said then, she oughtn’t to let him come to her again. Never again. She had shown him plainly what she meant. She could see herself, sitting very straight in her chair, uplifted by a passionate integrity, while he stood before her, hanging his head, ashamed and beaten; she could feel again the throb in her voice as she kept on saying that she couldn’t, she couldn’t; he must see that she couldn’t; that no, nothing would make her change her mind; she couldn’t forget he had a wife; that he must think of Muriel. To which he had answered savagely: “I needn’t. That’s all over. We only live together for the look of the thing.” And she, serenely, with great dignity: “And for the look of the thing, Oscar, we must leave off seeing each other. Please go.” “Do you mean it?” “Yes. We must never see each other again.” And he had gone then, ashamed and beaten. She could see him, squaring his broad shoulders to meet the blow. And she was sorry for him. She told herself she had been unnecessarily hard. Why shouldn’t they see each other again, now he understood where they must draw the line? Until yesterday the line had never been very clearly drawn. To-day she meant to ask him to forget what he had said to her. Once it was forgotten, they could go on being friends as if nothing had happened. It was four o’clock. Half-past. Five. She had finished tea and given him up when, between the half-hour and six o’clock, he came. [Illustration]