"What is the matter with him?" she asked, her earnest eyes holding his, questioning his, refusing, it occurred to him, to allow what he was telling her to bias her ultimate judgment. She had accustomed herself to ugly truths; she was not shocked or dismayed any longer, only anxious to have her worst fears confirmed or disproved. She desired to hear the whole truth, whatever it held of pain or humiliation. At least it could hold no disillusion for her. "He has had a stroke of paralysis, they tell me," Dare answered, avoiding her eyes. He was conscious of a sudden movement on her part, of a quick, inaudible exclamation which was followed by a sharp indrawing of her breath. He did not look at her; he felt, without seeing them, that there were tears of pity and of horror shining in her eyes. He counted for something to her still. She was sorry for the man. Dare felt unreasonably incensed. "There is hope of a partial recovery," he continued dully, trying to keep under the sudden sharp jealousy that gripped him as nothing he had experienced in all their former talks had gripped and hurt. "He'll get about again, they think... walk a little. His brain is affected-- slightly. That will never be quite clear again..." He broke off abruptly, and turned to her in protesting surprise. She was weeping. The tears were welling in her eyes and coursing down her cheeks. Arnott ill--broken--touched the deepest springs of her compassion. All the bitterness in her heart against the man who had so cruelly wronged her melted into sorrow for him in his terrible affliction. She no longer experienced any anger against him, only a great pity,--pity for the miserable wreckage of his health, which stood, it seemed to her, as a symbol of the wreckage of their love,--all the promise and the strength and the beauty gone for evermore,--only the dead ashes remaining in the furnace of life. "Your tears are a big return for his cruelty to you," he said, trying with ill success to hide the twinge of jealousy which caused him to wince at sight of her grief. "Some people might consider his condition a perfectly just retribution. You owe him nothing--not even pity." "One doesn't only render what is due," she said, wiping her eyes slowly. "That would make life too hard. Could you expect me to hear unmoved what you have just told me? I thought I had schooled myself to bear anything; but this is too awful. I would rather have heard that he was well and happy--with her." "She is going to him," he said, bluntly. "Going to him? ... Now?" Pamela's tone expressed wonder. "You mean, she loves him sufficiently to marry him--ill--like that?" "I mean," he returned, watching her narrowly, "that she loves herself sufficiently to put up with his condition on account of his wealth. She admitted that almost in as many words. It's as much as he has any right to expect." "Oh! no," she said quickly. "He is giving her more than that."