“I will admit that you have done your best to separate us,” said Clare, smiling, as she put an arm round Agnes. Her smile was that of an elder sister humouring a younger. “And now we will say no more about this horrid affair, if you please. We shall be to each other what we were before Claude Westwood came here to disturb us.” “God help you!” said Agnes, suffering her cheek to be kissed by the girl. She went into another room, and as she went she fancied that she could hear Clare laughing--actually laughing at the idea of anything coming between her and love for Claude Westwood. She sank down upon a sofa and stared at a picture that hung on the opposite wall. “She will not hear me--she will not hear me; and now it is too late to make any move,” she said. “I meant that he should be punished, but God knows that I never meant that his punishment should be like this! And she--poor child! poor child! Why should she be punished?” She remained seated there for a long time thinking her thoughts, racked with self-upbraiding at first, whispering, “If I had but known--if I could but have known!” But at the end of an hour she had become more calm. The darkness of the evening obscured everything in the room in which she sat, but she did not ring for a light. It was in the darkness that she stood up, saying, as if to reassure herself: “It is not my punishment, but the punishment of Heaven that has fallen on him. It is not I, but Heaven, whose hand is ready to strike. It is the justice of God. I will not come between him and God.” She dined, as usual, face to face with Clare, and there was nothing in the girl's manner to suggest that she had taken in the smallest measure to heart anything that Agnes had said. She did not even seem to have thought it worth her while to consider the possibility of her warnings having some foundation. She had simply smiled at them--the smile of the indulgent, elder sister. Her warning had produced no impression upon her. She was full of the details of her work. She had not been idle during the afternoon, she said. Oh no; every hour was precious. And then she went on to tell of the fear that had been haunting good Mr. Shackles--the fear lest the Arctic winter might be less rigorous than the best friends of Mr. Westwood (and Mr. Shackles) could wish, thereby making possible the return to England of the distinguished explorer, who, it was understood had been devoting all his spare time and tallow in the region of ninety degrees north latitude--or as near to it as he could get--to the writing of a book. Mr. Shackles's dread was lest the Arctic regions should shoulder Central Africa out of the market--a truly appalling cataclysm, Clare said, and one which should be averted at any sacrifice.