"Oh! no. One instance of failure doesn't damn the race. I am not going to take up your challenge. I am going to regard it as a thing uttered with ill-considered haste. How you came by your knowledge puzzles me; but one point I feel fairly confident on is that you won't use it. Women don't do these things, Miss Maitland, whatever they may say in moments of anger." "Oh! Women!" she exclaimed contemptuously. "You are fond of generalising. But in this case, it isn't women; it's just myself. I have got the chance I have always longed for. Do you think I am likely to let it slip? ... When he was taken ill so suddenly, and I feared he was going to die, I was nearly mad with anxiety. Then they told me he wouldn't die, that he would probably live for many years--with care... It was almost as great a shock to know that he was going to live and be--like that always. Do you think that woman, who calls herself his wife, will want him like that? ... Will be ready to devote her life to nursing him? I don't... Not when she learns the whole story." "We will leave it to her to decide," he answered quietly. The picture she drew of Arnott as a helpless invalid was not pleasant to dwell upon. It appealed to Dare in the light of a horrible injustice that Pamela should sacrifice herself to the care of an invalid husband, a man who had deceived and deserted her, who needed to be urged even then to return to her,--might possibly refuse to return. She would be wiser to yield to his entreaties and become his wife. He was not quite clear what legal relationship existed between Pamela and the man who had married her bigamously; but he had an idea that before she could be free of him it would be necessary for her to instigate divorce proceedings. He was not at all sure she would do that, even if Arnott refused to return to her. The whole affair was horribly complicated. "The decision won't rest with her, nor with you," Blanche observed after a brief pause. "You can't coerce a man like Mr Arnott. He won't allow you to arrange his life."