Chapter 24

She knew the truth at last�the whole truth�what he was in mind and in heart, what his love was, what he in his inmost soul thought about her, about himself. The man who could believe he was sharing her could not but be shallow indeed, stupid, and also incapable of understanding the meaning of the word love; the man who could keep on with a woman he believed he was "sharing," must be sunk in a wallow of sensuality�and as weak as low. She knew the truth. Hearing she might have disputed and in time denied. But there was, and would be, no evading the records stamped clear and indelible upon her memory by that sensual, maudlin face. To falsify those records was beyond even a proud, lonely, loving woman's all but limitless powers of self-deception in matters of the heart. The coarseness of that self-revelation of his was the liquor; but the revelation itself was the man. He did not love; he lusted. He did not love; he despised�her and himself. He did not love�and he never had loved.

There is in every one of us a chamber where vanity and hope live and ever conspire to deceive, and if possible, destroy us. From that secret chamber she now wrenched an amazing secret. She discovered that from the beginning�yes, from the beginning�she, determined to satisfy the craving of elemental flesh and blood, had been lying to herself about Basil Gallatin. Passion had taken sly advantage of her loneliness and her longing for sympathy and companionship; it had beguiled her imagination into creating out of the very ordinary materials of his true personality the lover she had been adoring. One by one she took out and re�xamined all her memory plates of him. Now, a memory plate is like any other photographic plate; it has a surface picture and it also yields to a close scrutiny a thousand details which do not appear upon the surface. Long before she finished, she was realizing that she had all along, with the deliberate craft of self-deception, been hiding from herself the trick her feelings were practicing upon her intelligence. Basil�pleasing manners and dress, amiable disposition, animalism agreeably disguised by education�Basil had been plausible enough to pass muster with her, ready and eager to be deluded because of her craving for love. True, he had posed to a certain extent. But he was not really responsible for the fraud. The blame was hers�all hers.

But disillusion no more destroys a love longing than lack of food and drink destroys hunger and thirst. High above moans of shame over the pitiful collapse of her romance rose the defiant clamors of hunger and thirst. They had been lovers, he and she; and that fact in itself was a bond which a woman, at least a woman of her temperament of fidelity, could not easily break. She feared when he, sober and a gentleman once more, sweet and winning, came to her and pleaded for forgiveness she would forgive�would in her loneliness and heart hunger take what she could get rather than have nothing and the ache of nothingness. It is�at least, it has been, up to and into the present time�second nature to woman to depend upon a man, to select some one man, the best available, and stake everything upon him. Basil Gallatin was that man for her. And�not in novels, but in life�before any woman, however high minded, goes away to utter aloneness from a man who cares for her, he must have disclosed some traits more abhorrent than any such human traits as those of Basil. Yes�human. Was it his fault that he had not given her the kind of love she wanted? Was it not probably her fault that he had not been inspired to that kind of love? Perhaps, too, the love of any man, could it be seen in the nakedness of drunkenness, would be much like Basil's. "I'm only a woman," she said. "I mustn't forget that. I've no right to expect much." And then she shuddered; for in her very ears was the sound of those cold rains falling day and night upon her loneliness and despair.

She saw herself accepting; for, a great deal less than half a loaf is better than no bread. And if she accepted, she must adapt herself�must force herself to acquire a liking for what she must eat or go altogether hungry. She saw herself wending down and down�to the level at which he had from the beginning thought her arrived. She looked all around. Nothing�no one�to save her. For, what could she hope from Richard?�from any man? Was not Basil giving about the best man had to offer woman in the way of association? There was the Richard sort of man�an abstraction�an impossibility. There was the Shirley Drummond sort of man�a human incarnation of Old Dog Tray�equally impossible. There was the third sort of man�the Basil sort, somewhere between the two impossibilities. Life must be lived, and with human beings. Of the three available kinds of associates, was not the Basil sort the most livable? Rather Basil than being frozen to death by a Richard or bored to death by a Shirley. The conclusion seemed cynical; but there was no cynicism in the sad woman who faced that conclusion.

She did not go down to breakfast; and Basil, she learned, kept away also. When he did not appear at dinner she knew he had determined to wait until he should surely see her alone. The emotion that stirred in her because his place at the table was vacant gave her more and sadder light upon how little the heart heeds the things that impress the mind and the self-respect. About the middle of the afternoon she was at the small antique desk in the corner of her sitting room, trying to write a letter. But the charm of the day, the beauty of full-foliaged trees, of lake and cloudless sky seen through the creeper-framed window, would not let her write. As she gazed, her unhappiness calmed and all her senses flooded with the joy that laughs in sunbeams, in light and shadow floating on the grass, in flight and song of birds, in grace and color and perfume of flowers, the joy that mocks at moral struggle and flutters alluringly the gay banner of the gospel of eat, drink and be merry.

As she took her pen to go on with the letter, Lizzie appeared in the hall doorway. "Mr. Vaughan asked me to tell you," she said, "that he'd gone out and might not be back for supper."

"Very well," said Courtney, not turning round. It flitted across her mind that this was an extraordinary message for Richard to send�Richard who came and went as he pleased and sent no word when he was not coming to dinner or supper. "Where's he gone?" she asked�an extraordinary question from her to match the extraordinary message from him.

"He was in a hurry and didn't say," replied Lizzie. "I'll find out."

"Oh, no. It doesn't matter."

Lizzie went, and in her dreaming and thinking Courtney soon forgot the incident. Again Lizzie's voice interrupted�"Mr. Vaughan's gone to see old Nanny."

"Nanny!" said Courtney. She never thought of the old woman except as the memorandum of her pension check appeared every three months in the household accounts.

"Yes. She's dying. She sent for him. Such dreadful roads too."

Courtney's pen halted on its way to the ink well. The room seemed to her to have become terribly still.

"She sent him word," Lizzie went carelessly on, and her voice seemed to come from a distance, through a profound hush, "that she had something on her conscience and couldn't go without clearing it. I reckon she's gone clean crazy."

It was not fear that made nerve and muscle tense. It was not self-control that held her motionless. The peril was upon her; there was no time to waste in emotion. All along, she had pretended to herself that Nanny knew nothing, had at worst a dim suspicion. Now, she realized that she had always feared the old woman had seen and had heard. And those words of Lizzie's made it impossible for her to doubt what was about to occur. No time for terror, for hysteria or fainting or futile moaning. Her whole being concentrated on the one idea, What shall I do? Calmly she said to Lizzie, "Has he gone?"

"Ten minutes ago�maybe fifteen."

"Did he take the motor?"

"Yes, ma'am. She's near dead. He went in a great hurry."

Idle then to think of overtaking him, of bringing him back with a story that Winchie was missing, was perhaps drowned in the lake. Her mind�it had never been clearer or steadier�gave Richard up for the moment, turned to another phase. "Where is Mr. Gallatin?" she asked.

"Out on the lake. Winchie's with him�fishing."

"When they come in, please tell him I wish to see him at once." The events of last night were as if they had not been. Wounds closed up like magic; once more it was she and Basil her lover united against the whole world.

"I can call him from the wall," suggested Lizzie.

"Yes�please do." She dipped the pen as if about to go on with the interrupted letter. Lizzie went. She laid the pen down, leaned back in the chair, clasped her hands behind her head, gazed unseeingly into the huge tree almost directly before the window. The irony of it! Through Nanny whom they had forgotten! The blow was about to fall�utter ruin�the end of love�of life probably. A few hours and there would be a convulsion of the most awful passions. She looked round. Everything calm, bright, beautiful. Reason told her what was about to occur; but there are calamities which the imagination cannot picture, and this was one of them.... Should she tell Basil? "Nanny may be dead before Richard gets to her. If I tell Basil�and Richard comes, only suspicious�Basil's manner may confirm him." It was still more significant that it did not enter her head as even a possibility that Basil might be able to help her devise some plan to avert or to mitigate the blow.... In the midst of her debate whether to tell him, she suddenly gave a terrible cry, sprang to the window, her expression wildly disheveled. The thought had flashed, "If Richard hears and believes, he will kill Basil!"

Before she reached the balcony rail, reason took her by the shoulder, drew her back to her chair. "I must keep my head!" she exclaimed aloud. And she fought down and triumphed over the terror that had all but mastered her. At Gallatin's step on the threshold she did not turn. "Shut the door," she said in her usual voice. Then, after the sound of its closing, "Nanny, on her deathbed, has sent for him�to confess something. He's gone to her."

She heard him slowly cross the room, knew he was standing at the window. After a while she stole a glance at him. His skin was gray, his profile set; there were deep lines round his mouth. She liked his face, it was so manly; a wave of love surged out from her heart. "How long shall we have to wait?" he asked. The voice, though wholly unlike his own, had no note of cowardice in it.

"He's been gone about half an hour."

"Only half an hour!"

She saw the sweat burst out upon his forehead. She saw the muscles of his face trembling. There was agony in his eyes�not fear, but that horror of suspense which makes the trapped soldier rush upon the bayonet, makes the man on the scaffold assist the leisurely hangman.

Silence, except the chirping of the birds. A bumblebee buzzed almost into his face; he did not wince. A black-and-gold butterfly fluttered in at the window on the other side of the desk, hovered, settled upon the lid of the stationery box, rested with wings together as one. She turned her eyes from him to watch it, said absently:

"You will have to go at once."

She heard him turn full toward her. She was expecting that quick movement, but she could not help shrinking a little. However she went on evenly: "You can cross in the motor boat, take a trap at Wenona, catch the four-o'clock express at Fenton."

"I deserve that," he said, and she knew he was referring to last night.

She hesitated, went straight at it. "I'd forgotten last night since Lizzie told me about Nanny. It's wiped out. So, you need think only of going."

"What are you talking about?" he exclaimed. "I�go?"

She was ready. She turned upon him a look of well-simulated surprise. Then� "Oh!" she cried. "I've been thinking it out, and you haven't. At first glance it does look as if we ought to face it together. But as you consider it you'll see you've simply got to go."

He seated himself, took out his cigarette case, lighted a cigarette. "If I go anywhere it will be in his direction, to shorten the wait."

"Listen," said she, leaning toward him, her forearms on the desk, her hands clasped. "He'll have but one idea�to kill you. If you're here, the very sight of you will set him wild. He'll kill you�how can you defend yourself?"

"I can't. Vaughan has the right to my life."

She winced at this unconscious ugly reminder of what he really thought of their romance. She waved her hand as if brushing something away. "No matter about that," said she. "I'm thinking how to save Winchie from disgrace�and my own life. If you're here, there's no hope. If you're gone, he'll have the chance to reflect. And I shall know what to say and how to say it."

"I don't believe she knew anything."

"Basil!" His eyes shifted. "Don't you remember?"

Both were hearing the mad flapping of that frightened bird in the copse round the summerhouse. She shivered; he moved uneasily. "Even if she knew," he objected, "she may be dead or in the stupor of death before he gets to her."

"Then he'll hear nothing, and there's no reason why you shouldn't go. I'll say you got a telegram from your mother��"

"If he comes merely suspecting and uneasy, and I'm gone��"

"Still he'd not be sure," she interrupted. "And if he were, he'd not have the sight of you to inflame him." She rose. "There's no time to waste."

He settled himself. "I shall not go. We face him together."

The clock on the chimney-piece struck. She gave a cry, rushed to him. "Basil�my love!" she implored. "If you love me, go�go!"

He pressed his hands to her cheeks tenderly, smiled at her with the gentle tolerance of superior male for female. "I understand, dear. This is like you. But my honor will not let me go."

She released his hand, stood gazing at him. In the beginning she had urged only because she had wished to save him. But she had been convinced by her own arguments; and it amazed her that he was refusing to see what was so clear. "You�will�not�go?" she said.

"No, Courtney. I cannot."

She brushed the strays of hair from her brow. She laughed scornfully, with a contemptuous shrug. "Whether you two men kill each other or are only wounded, still Winchie and I will be disgraced. You may be only wounded�may get over it in a week or so�or you two may only have a vulgar fight�with the servants looking on. In any case I am done for."

He was like a horse when the spur is bidding it advance and the curb is bidding it halt. "If I stay," he cried, "you'll despise me. If I go, you'll despise me."

"If you stay you destroy me. If you go, I can save myself. Will you go or not? Oh, after last night�this on top of that� And, after last night, you can debate whether or not I'll despise you! Go, I tell you! You couldn't sink any lower than you have�and you may redeem yourself." They were facing each other, he white before her scorn and fury. "But not," she went on, "if to what you said and did then you add debating a point of cheap pose when I and my child are at stake. What a shallow, vain creature you are!"

"Do you mean these things? Or are you only pretending, to make me fly and save myself?"

"I mean every word. In spite of last night, of all it taught me, I was still hoping�or, trying to hope. But now� Thank God I had Winchie when I met you, and wasn't free to make an utter fool of myself. A man who could betray his friend for lust, and then betray his mistress for vanity!"

His eyes blazed mingled hate and passion at her. "But you'll go with me now!" he cried, in triumphant fury. "Yes, we'll take that train together. The jig's up, and, damn you, you witch, you've got to go with me."

She was shaking with fright. For the moment she could think of no answer. She was under the spell of the terrible expression of his eyes.

"If he comes looking for some one to kill, he'll kill you if he can't get us both. So�we go together, or die together, as you please."

"Very well," said she, seating herself. "Oh, how like you this is! You know that if we fly, my boy is smirched for life�and I too. You know that if I stay, I may save everything�even your life. If we went, Richard would never rest till he'd hunted us down and killed us."

"I've lost you," said he sullenly. "I don't care what happens. I feel like killing you myself." He straightened up. "Why not?" he cried. "Kill you, then myself�get it all over with."

The silence was broken by a shout from Winchie playing with the neighbor's children on the lawn. That sound compelled her to another effort. She went to Basil, laid her hands gently on his shoulders. "Basil," she pleaded, tears in her eyes, in her voice, "for my boy's sake�for my sake�go! Now that you think about it you can't but see it's the decent, the honorable thing to do. Let's not quarrel�we who have been so much to each other. Go and let us save everything."

He looked into her eyes, and she knew that if he had drunk as much that day as he did the day before, he would have killed her and himself. But she saw that he, sober, was hesitating, was moved by her appeal to his generous, kind nature, overflowing with sentimentality. "Dear," she said, "you can row out on the lake. And if everything's all right I'll hang something white on this shutter here. Then you can come back. Even if he comes home suspicious he'll not think it strange that you're on the lake late."

"But he may come to kill, and before I could get back��"

"But he will not kill me, I tell you. I'm 'only a woman.' I know him. You know, too. And if he would, how could you save me? Would I want to live disgraced?" The clock struck again. She gave a scream, flung her arms round his neck. "Save me, Basil! Go�quick!�quick!"

After the frightful things she had said to him and he to her, there was left him only the choice between going and killing her and himself. On the threshold he, with tears in his eyes, embraced her and kissed her. "God help me, I don't know what to do," he said. "I'll go. If it turns out wrong, remember how you perplexed me�and try to forgive me, dear."

He was so genuine, so manly and loving and she felt so grateful to him that her own eyes filled and she gave him her lips with her heart in them.

She stood at the window; she walked up and down the balcony. But she watched the lake in vain. Five minutes ten�fifteen, and no Basil�Winchie came with his usual rush, flung himself into the hammock. "What is it, mamma?" he asked presently.

She startled, turned on him with eyes wild. "Oh!" she gasped, her hand on her heart. "I didn't know you were there."

"Are you watching for Mr. Gallatin?"

"Why, dear?"

"Because, if you are, he came in with me a long time ago and isn't out there any more."

A silence, she trying to keep her gaze off the lake.

"I like him," the boy went on. "At least, some better than I did. He knows a lot about fishing. When papa blows himself up and never comes down any more, as Jimmie says he will some day, I think I'll let Mr. Gallatin stay on with us."

Courtney scarcely heard. She was grinding her palms together and muttering incoherently when at last she saw his boat pushing leisurely in the direction of Wenona. She drew a long breath. But as the boat glided farther and farther away, her sick heart failed her. She felt abandoned�and afraid. For, she had not told the truth when she said she knew Richard would not kill her.

Winchie stayed on, talking incessantly and no more disturbed by her inattention than babbling brook or trilling bird by lack of audience. His chatter fretted her like the rapping of a branch on the window of an invalid. But she would not send him away. If Richard should come, Winchie's being there would halt him�perhaps, just long enough. After an hour Winchie grew tired of talking and ran off to play. She did not detain him�why, she did not know�probably, because to detain him would have been to encourage a fear that must be defied if the coming battle for Winchie and reputation and life was not to be lost before it began. She must not seem to be afraid. That would be fatal. And the sure way to seem unafraid was to be unafraid.

She paced the floor. She watched the distant boat with its single occupant. She sat and tried to finish her letter. She roamed through the house. "I'll meet him in the grounds," decided she�and, compelling herself to walk slowly, she paced the road between gates and house�up and down, up and down. Back to the house again, to her room. "Yes, we'll not wait supper," she said, in answer to Lizzie's inquiry. At supper, the sound of Helen's and Winchie's voices rasped on her nerves. "Will he never come?" she muttered. And without explanation, she left the table, went again to her sitting room.

"Are you ill, dear?" asked Helen, putting her head in at the door.

"No," replied she, curtly.

Helen went, but Winchie came. "You must hear my prayer, mamma."

"Helen taught it to you. Let her hear it."

"No. She's busy downstairs, and I'm in a hurry to go to sleep."

"Then�just say it by yourself."

"It seems foolish to say it, with nobody to listen."

"Very well."

She sat on the floor beside his bed. He knelt before her, eyes closed, hands folded as Helen had taught him. She was listening�listening�listening. "If he came now�" thought she�one of those sardonic fancies that leer even from a coffin. She stayed on with the boy, getting him to tell her stories, she the while listening, listening for sounds on the drive, on the stairs�and hearing only the sound of the seconds splashing one by one into eternity. Winchie fell asleep. She kissed him, fled from his room with a choke in her throat. She composed herself, descended to the kitchen. Lizzie and Mazie were there, and as she opened one door Jimmie entered by the other.

She became suddenly weak, but contrived to say to him, "Didn't you bring Mr. Vaughan back?"

"Yes, ma'am�an hour ago�most. He got down at the gate and went to the Smoke House. He wanted to see Mr. Gallatin�said for me to send him if he was up here. But Mr. Gallatin's went out in a boat and ain't in yet. Guess he's spending the evening over to Wenona."

She closed the door, leaned weak and sick against the wall of the passageway. Richard knew! Back to her room. She walked, she sat, she lay down. She watched the clock. The moments were aging her like years. Each second was dropping into eternity with a boom that echoed in her shuddering heart. She looked at herself in the mirror. Skin ashen; lines round her mouth�the gauntness of age peering ghastlily through her youth like a skeleton with a fresh young mask over its face bones. A black band all round each eye, the eyes blazing out feverishly. "He must not see me like this," she cried. She went down to the dining room, trembling and listening at every step, like a thief. She drank a glass of brandy at the sideboard, fled to her rooms again. She took the pitcher of ice water into the bath room, emptied it into the bowl of the stationary stand, bathed her face. She pressed a lump of ice against her blue-black burning lids. "Why don't I wake?" she said, for throughout she had the sense of unreality that attends but does not lessen an impending horror.

Twelve o'clock�"I'll go to bed. I'll take Winchie into bed with me. Not because I'm afraid but because I'm lonely." She felt a great longing to live. She felt young and strong, and the look and the odor of life were delicious. If only this crisis could be passed! No matter how�no matter how! "I've the right to live!" She lifted Winchie gently from his bed, carried him to hers. The warmth of his vivid young body stole sweet and sad through her thin nightgown, through her flesh into her heart. He half awakened, half put out his arms to embrace her, murmured "Mamma"�was asleep again. She sobbed a little in self-pity, dried her tears for shame, lay down beside her boy, nestled one hand under his body.

For a moment she felt better. Then up she rose, bore him back to his own bed, returned. But as she was closing the door, she hesitated�"It's not hiding behind him. If I have him with me, it may save him from disgrace." She was about to open the door, when she turned away abruptly. "No! If I did that, I'd deserve to die. Why should I hide behind Winchie? Why should I hide, at all? I may have done wrong, but I wronged myself, not Richard. I may have done wrong. But I had the right to do wrong." She put out the light, lay down again, somewhat calmer. Suddenly she sat bolt upright in the darkness. She had forgotten all about Basil! Had he rowed back, had he and Richard met��

The hall door of her bedroom opened softly�she had intentionally left it unlocked. She sank back against the pillows. Her heart stooped beating as she listened. No further sound. When she could endure no longer, she said, "Who is it?"

Dick's voice, saying, "Oh, you aren't asleep."

"What time is it?"

"About half past one." It was Richard's voice, yet not his.

A long silence. She could hear her heart beating�the ticking of the little clock on the night stand�the murmur of the breeze among the boughs�and another sound�she thought it must be the beating of his heart.

Then he: "May I turn up the light�just for a minute?"

"I'll turn it up." She did so, and as she lay down again saw with a swift furtive glance that his face was haggard, that his eyes seemed deep sunk in black pits, and that he was gazing at the floor. And still she had the sense of unreality, of the dream that will pass.

He advanced a step or two. She felt him intently looking at her. Again that breathless silence. Then he gave a great sigh, bent over her, gently kissed her hair. "What glorious hair you have," he said. "And what a pure, innocent face. It's only necessary to see your face, to know you are good."

She wondered why her skin was not burning, why her lips did not open and her voice cry out. "But when this is past," she said to herself, "no more lies�never again!"

"Good night," he was saying.

"Good night," she murmured, the sense of unreality, of the passing dream, stronger than ever.

She heard him cross the room, heard the door close behind him. She leaped from her bed to lock it. As she was halfway across the room, the door opened. Mechanically she snatched from the sofa a dark kimona, drew it round her. "I forgot to turn out your light," he said. "Oh�it was the night-stand light, wasn't it?" Then she had the sense of impending disaster and� His whole expression, body as well as face, changed. His eyes seemed starting from his head. "You�you"�he stammered�"That night when I came home unexpectedly�" He flung out his arms, dropped heavily to the chair behind him. "It's true!" he gasped. "It's true!"

The kimona that had helped to remind him and to betray her had dropped from her listless shoulders to the floor. She seated herself on the edge of the bed, her hands clasped loosely in her lap. She looked calmly at him. She now felt as much her normal self as she had up to the moment when Lizzie brought her the news that he had gone to Nanny. She was glad the crisis had come. More�she was glad he knew the truth. "Now," she said to herself, with dizzy elation, "I'll either die or begin to live. 'Nothing is settled, till it's settled right.' My life will be settled right, at last."

He made several attempts to look at her, could not lift his eyes. As they sat there she seemed innocence and he guilt. "Nanny told me," he said, as if feeling round for a beginning. Then, after a long wait, "She said she couldn't die with it on her conscience. I thought her mind was wandering�but�somehow�I couldn't�" He broke off. Another long wait. He ended it with the question she had been expecting: "Where's�he?"

"Gone."

Another pause, longer. "I'm stunned�stunned." He stared at the floor, his head between his hands, his elbows on his knees. "So�he ran away."

"I sent him."

"I am glad. I might have�" He did not finish. "I'm stunned," he muttered.

She clasped her hands round one knee�a favorite attitude of hers�and waited. It was a time for her to be silent, to watch, to wait. A word, any word, from her might cause the explosion.

"Why did you send him away?" he asked. It was as if he were talking with a stranger about an indifferent matter.

"Because he has nothing to do with this. It's between you and me."

Their eyes met. "Nothing to do with this?" he repeated, as if trying to understand.

"It's between you and me," she repeated.

His eyes turned away, as if he were reflecting upon this. Silence again. Then he: "I don't know what to do. I know it's so, but I can't believe it. It's not like you�not at all." He looked at her. She met his gaze steadily. His eyes shifted. "Not at all," he repeated. He was still talking as if to a stranger. She understood why; it would have been impossible for any force, even such a discovery as this, to galvanize into a living personality, with a mind to think and to will, the woman who had for six years been mere incident in his busy life, "Not at all like you," he again repeated. "Yet�why did I feel it was true as soon as Nanny told me?"

She remained silent and motionless.

"Why don't you speak?" he demanded, trying to rouse himself to reality. "Why don't you defend yourself?"

So long as she did not defend, he could not attack. She did not answer.

"You do not deny. You admit?"

She was silent.

"He is safe, so long as he keeps away. You need not be afraid to confess that he took advantage of a moment of weakness." It was an offer of a defense he would accept.

She refused it instantly. "That is not true," she said.

"Yes, it is," he insisted. "He took advantage of my absence��"

"What I did," she interrupted, "was of my own free will�was what I felt I had the right to do."

His eyes lifted to hers in amazement. Again they found her gaze steady and direct. "Don't you realize what you've done?" he exclaimed. Such an expression as hers must mean either innocence or a shamelessness beyond belief.

"Yes, I realize," she answered in the same calm colorless tone in which she had spoken all her few words.

"How like a child you are," said he gently�and child-like she certainty looked, sitting there all in white, so small and lovely and sweet, with her heavy braids twisted round her little head, giving her appearance a touch of quaintness, of precocious gravity. "A mere child. You don't even understand what you're accused of. It simply can't be true�it�" He started up. "My God�if only I hadn't seen that room that night!" And she knew he was seeing what she was seeing�Basil's disheveled room�and she in it, like it. "Courtney! Courtney! How could you�how could you!" And down he sank with face buried in his hands and shoulders heaving.

She hung her head in shame. In vain she reminded herself how he had refused to treat her as a human being, how he had spurned all her appeals, how he had refused to let her live either with him or without him�would give her neither marriage nor divorce. All in vain. Before his grief she could feel only her own deceit. It might be true that he had not allowed her to be honest; it was also true that she had not been honest.

When she looked at him again, she was fascinated by the expression of his long aristocratic profile�stern, inscrutable. "I realize," he presently said, "that I don't know or understand you at all. But of one thing I'm certain�that you are not a bad woman. I've been recalling you from the beginning�from our childhood even. You never were bad. I can remember only sweet and beautiful things about you."

She covered her face with her arm. "Don't!" she murmured.

"I wasn't saying that to make you ashamed," he hastened to explain. "I can't help feeling that somehow or other I am more to blame than you. But that's aside. The main thing is, we must both do the best we can to straighten things out. Isn't it so?"

To straighten things out! Not to rave and curse and kill�not scandal on scandal, disgrace on disgrace�but�"to straighten things out." She pressed both hands to her face, flung herself upon the pillow and sobbed into it�an outburst like a long-pent volcano relieving itself of the fiery monsters that have been tormenting its vitals.

"We'll not talk of it," he went on, as the storm was subsiding, "until we're both of us calmer."

A long pause, the silence broken by the sound of her sobs which she strove in vain to suppress. Then she heard his voice gently saying "Good night." And she was alone, dazed and shamed before this incredible anticlimax to her forebodings.