"You are distressing yourself unnecessarily, Pamela," he said. "There is no difference really. You felt quite secure until to-day. Your position is as assured now as it ever was. You are more my wife than the woman who wrote that letter. She has a legal right to my name; but we were never mated as you and I are. My first marriage was a bitter mistake which I have ceased to consider long ago. She stands for nothing in my life. You are everything to me--everything. I'd fight to keep you with my last breath." "You ought not to have done it," Pamela said, and wrung her hands. He put his hand over hers and stayed her. "You ought to have left me in peace... What peace is there for me now? Any hour this thing may come out. It's not our secret,--yours and mine alone." "It's yours and mine and hers," he said. "She won't speak." "How can you be sure?" Pamela cried passionately. "She told me." "Yes--damn her!" he returned, and stood up abruptly. "She has been threatening to do that for months. But I thought I could intercept the letter. I never dreamed of her writing to you like this... But she has done what she meant to. She will be silent now." "But things can't go on as they have been," Pamela said piteously. "I can't stay here, now I _know_. I--Don't you see, Herbert?--it wouldn't be right. I should feel--" She shivered suddenly, and broke down again and wept bitterly. "Oh, dear heaven!" she wailed. "What am I to do?" "Do you mean," he said in a hard voice, "that you think of leaving me?" Then, his calmness deserting him, he went to her and took her in his arms and kissed her tenderly. "Pamela," he whispered brokenly, "what I have done, I did out of love for you. It may be that I did you a wrong in marrying you; but,--to give you up! ... I couldn't. Oh! my dearest, believe me, I have fought hard... I fought against my love for you; but it was too strong; it broke down every barrier. It would have broken me if I could not have had you... Dearest, speak to me... Tell me that you forgive me,--that you'll stick to me. You can't leave me, Pam,--you can't leave me. My dear, I couldn't let you go." Pamela freed herself from his embrace, and sat bade looking at him with her miserable tear-blurred eyes. She put up a hand and swept the hair back from her brow. "It wouldn't be right," she said, and stirred restlessly... "I don't know... I must think." She got up and passed him and walked towards the door. He made no attempt to stop her. "I want to be alone," she said slowly... "I want to think..."