She read the letter through twice. Then a great fear chilled her. Its premonitions had come that evening on the lake, just before the thunder broke, and through all her after-intoxication it had loomed threateningly. Only her will had staved it off. Now it held her in its grip. His wife. The words stared her in the face, repeated over and over again with every surrounding of passion, tenderness, and devotion. She grew cold. A lump rose in her throat. She walked across the room, poured herself out a glass of water, and sat down again. The dream, the illusion, the joy, all was over. A great pain was in her eyes as she gazed sightlessly straight in front of her. As she gazed, a temptation crept insidiously into her heart, relaxed and soothed for a moment her tense nerves. Why should she tell him that which she knew his fine nature would never ask? All her future to all eternity was his. What mattered the past? Her eyes fell upon his letter on her lap, caught a few chance phrases. Then a shudder passed through her like a wave of self-contempt and revulsion, and, leaning forward, she buried her face in her hands and cried. He was too noble to be deceived--to be entrapped as by a common adventuress. The thought scorched her. Silence would be metal too base to repay the pure gold of his love. A million times sooner speak and lose him than keep him with a lie. All that was pure and true and womanly in her revolted at the temptation. For a long time she remained with bowed head, her thoughts whirling round the means whereby she was to deal the death-blow at her happiness. The moments passed quickly, and the shadows gathered as the afternoon began to melt into evening. A message from Mme. Boccard, asking her whether she was coming down to dinner, was the first thing that made her conscious of the flight of time. She sent down word that she was poorly. A plate of soup brought up to her would be all that she required. Then she fell back into her despairing thoughts. The cry wrung from the soul of Denise hummed in her ears until it became a meaningless burthen. Since that night in January when she had seen the play with Raine, she had morbidly applied that cry to herself--“_Je suis de celles qu'on aime, mais qu'on n'epouse pas._” A faint ray of hope shot across the darkness. He had told her his own story. To him it was a sacred memory. The girl that he had loved, the mother of his child, was in his eyes the purest of women. Would not that mitigate the judgment he would have to pass on her? She clung to the hope revealed, as she lost grip of herself. He would not despise her. He would still love her. She would be to him what that other had been. Her thoughts for a while grew hysterical.