"An illness like Mr Arnott's would change any one," she answered. "The difference will be less marked as he gains strength. Your visit seems to have done him good already. He is sleeping quite quietly and comfortably." "I am glad," Pamela said simply. She rose and turned appealingly to Dare. "Shall we go now?" "If you are ready," he said. The matron held the door open. "You are quite sure?" she asked, as she shook hands, and looked searchingly into the frightened blue eyes of this surprising visitor, "that you won't have something before you leave?" "Quite sure, thank you," Pamela summoned a wintry smile to her aid. "I am sorry to have given so much trouble," she added. "I won't be so foolish again." The matron repudiated the suggestion of trouble, and inquired if she was to expect the visitor on the morrow. Pamela hesitated for a barely perceptible moment, during which Dare looked as though he would have suggested the wisdom of refraining from making a definite arrangement. He did not, however, speak; and Pamela answered reluctantly, after a pause: "To-morrow... Yes, I will come to-morrow." Out in the open air again, driving bade to their hotel, Dare asked her why she had made the arrangement. "There wasn't any need," he said. "You might not feel up to it. Besides, there's the point to be settled first. If you are going to draw back it has to be now." "I can't draw back," she answered nervously... "I can't." "Can you go through with it?" he asked. "That's the question. To draw back is quite ample. In my opinion, it is what you ought to do. Your heart isn't in this, Pamela." "No," she admitted. She frowned faintly. "Before I came my one fear was that he would be difficult; now that I find him wanting me I'm holding back. It's paltry of me. I think if I had come alone I should have found it easier." "You mean," he said, "that I am trying to influence you?" "Not trying... I mean that your presence influences me. It makes me hate the thought of living with him. There is no love in my heart for him--not any. When I saw him lying there so ill, so terribly altered, I didn't want to go near him,--didn't want to touch him. It was horrible. I had to force myself to touch him. That is how it will be, I suppose, always. It wasn't the sight of him so much as that thought which so unnerved me. And that woman thinks me an unfeeling brute. Dear heaven! if she only knew!" "Look here!" he said. "I can't stand this. If you feel all that about it you have no right to go on. It's no fairer on him than on you. It's no kindness to him." "I am not acting from any motive of kindness towards him," she answered. "I'm paying the debt--and making him pay--which we owe to the children we brought into the world. That is my only reason for going on with this. I can't draw back. I wish I could--even now." The motor stopped before the hotel entrance. Dare got out and helped her to descend.