"That was not my doing. The coming to the Maze was the greatest mistake ever made. I was powerless to help it." Again she believed she understood. That when Sir Karl had wished to shake off certain trammels, he found himself not his own master in the matter, and could not. "And so you submitted?" she scornfully said. "I had no other choice, Lucy." "And you pay your visits there!" "Occasionally. I cannot do otherwise." "Does it never occur to you to see that public exposure may come? she continued, in the same contemptuous tone. For the time, Lucy Andinnian's sweet nature seemed wholly changed. Every feeling she possessed had risen up against the bitter insult thrust upon her--and Sir Karl seemed to be meeting it in a coolly insulting spirit. "The fear of exposure is killing me, Lucy," he breathed, his chest heaving with its painful emotion. "I have been less to blame than you imagine. Let me tell you the story from the beginning, and you will see that----" "I will not hear a word of it," burst forth Lucy. "It is not a thing that should be told to me. At any rate, I will not hear it." "As you please, of course; I cannot force it on you. My life was thorny enough before: I never thought that, even if the matter came to your knowledge, you would take it up in this cruel manner, and add to my pain and perplexity." "It is for the Maze that we have to be economical here!" she rejoined, partly as a question, her hand laid on her rebellious bosom. "Yes, yes. You see, Lucy, in point of fact----" "I see nothing but what I do see. I wish to see no further." Sir Karl looked searchingly at her, as though he could not understand. Could this be his own loving, gentle Lucy? It was indeed difficult to think so. "In a day or two when you shall have had time to recover from the blow, Lucy--and a blow I acknowledge it to be--you will, I hope, judge me more leniently. You are my wife and I will not give you up: there is no real cause for it. When you shall be calmer you may feel sorry for some things you have said now." "Sir Karl, listen: and take your choice. I will stay on in your home on the terms I have mentioned, and they shall be perfectly understood and agreed to by both of us; or I will leave it for the protection of my father's home. In the latter case I shall have to tell him why. It is for you to choose." `"Have you well weighed what your telling would involve?" "Yes; exposure: and it is that I wish to avoid. If it has to come, it will be your fault. The choice lies with you. My decision is unalterable." Sir Karl Andinnian wiped his brow of the fever-drops gathered there. It was a bitter moment: and he considered that his wife was acting with most bitter harshness. But no alternative was left him, for he dared not risk exposure and its awful consequences.