Some weeks passed. They saw each other frequently, but there were many little flaws in the frankness of their intercourse to which he wilfully blinded himself. There were times when a chance sweetness of look or phrase set his heart beating madly; when, also, a chance wistfulness in her manner brought back vividly the full meaning of Harroway’s offer, and made him curse its futility. After a while she appeared to grow less cheerful. She would regard him with a little tender air of surprised reproach, which he attributed to the weariness of her lot. One Saturday night they walked from Bedford Square, where the Cahusacs lived, to Hyde Park Corner, before they took the omnibus for High Street, Kensington. In spite of the bright, evening they had just spent, the walk was singularly silent. Towards the end she leaned on his arm, feeling tired. Involuntarily he drew her closer to him, but the constraint grew greater. In the omnibus he asked her whether she felt down-hearted. She alleged a headache. His ready sympathy sprang to her. Why had she walked all that distance? To see whether exercise would remedy it, she replied. “Life is weighing upon you, Renie,” he said, as he parted from her at her door. “It is Hugh--a little,” she answered. And the stone-staircase was not too dimly lighted for him not to perceive once more the curious, reproachful surprise in her glance. He went away full of passionate remorse for what he had brought upon her. Her life was crushing her. A desperate remedy flashed through his mind. A terrible temptation. Yet keenly sensitive to that within him which concerned Irene, he perceived an ugly leering selfishness beneath the surface, and he put the temptation from him. Meanwhile the series of articles over the signature “Delta” had attracted attention. Her identity leaked out. A paragraph appearing in the literary notes of one journal, and copied by several others, revealed it to the general public. In these modern days a pseudonym is as effective a disguise as a jacket worn inside out. She was disturbed in mind, dreading publicity. “Delta” had become as soiled a name as “Irene Merriam.” Would not that lessen the influence of her work? Men would pass her articles by with a contemptuous shrug, and her appeals would be unheeded. To cry in the wilderness is task enough; to cry in a voice scorned by the few stragglers who hear, would have depressed the Baptist himself.