ave been all these awful years. And then
you come on the scene--you, who've borne nothing of all the years
before--and begin to drag him down again. You must be mad to think I
could risk it!"

"But don't I know all this? Do you think I'm less anxious than you are
that he should stay as he is? Only trust me ... trust me! His future
... think of that...."

Mrs. Payne laughed bitterly, but Gabrielle persisted.

"His future ... My husband says that he can make a success of him. He
can take a high place in a Government examination; he can get into the
diplomatic service. Just believe that I love him too much to stand in
his way. Why, I can even help him. If he does this I know that he'll
want influence. _You_ haven't influence to help him. I don't want to
belittle you, but I know you've nothing but your money, while I _can_
help him. My cousin is Lord Halberton. He's been a Cabinet minister.
There's no knowing what he mightn't do with his help. If you love anyone
as I do him, why shouldn't you give your life to his interests? That's
what I'd do. I'd think of nothing else. I'd give all my thoughts to
him. And I promise ... oh, I promise faithfully, that I won't let him
love me ... if only you'll let me love him."

Mrs. Payne stiffened. "You're trying to bribe me," she said, "and I'm
not the kind of person who can be bribed. I don't care that much about
his future! Until the last month I never so much as dreamed that any
future of that kind was possible. It's quite enough for me that he
should settle down here into the sort of life that his father would have
lived if he'd been spared. I don't want to share his successes with
you...."

"Ah, you're jealous!"

"Of course I'm jealous. I've reason to be. He's mine. But even if I
could trust you ... and I believe I could ... Arthur's future wouldn't
tempt me to risk his present. No ... it's too dangerous."

"Dangerous..." Gabrielle clutched at the word. "Dangerous!" She became
suddenly quiet and intense. "I don't believe you know where the danger
lies," she said.

"I can see the most obvious danger, and that's a love affair with a
married woman."

"You can't see any other? You said just now that Arthur had changed
thanks to my husband. Perhaps my husband took the credit for it and you
believed it. But it isn't true. I've seen the change coming hour by
hour, day by day. Every moment of it I've watched and treasured. He did
not change