lyse her
motives?"

"Her motives were simple enough; sad enough too, in all conscience.
Why make her ridiculous by forcing her heart into the groove of your
philosophy? The poor woman was miserably deceived; abominably
deceived. You do not know what anguish of mind she suffered."

"There is nothing to show that she went to the Alexandra to meet a
lover beyond the fact of a statement made to Mike in a moment of
acute nervous excitement. We have no reason to think that she ever
had a lover. I never heard her name mentioned in any such way. Did
you, Escott?"

"Yes; I have heard that you were her lover."

"I assure you I never was; we have not even been on good terms for a
long time past."

"You said just now that the act was generally preceded by a state of
feeling long preparing. It was you who taught her to read
Schopenhauer."

"I am not going to listen to nonsense at this hour of the morning. I
never take nonsense on an empty stomach. Come, Thompson, you are
going my way."

Mike and Frank walked home together. The clocks had struck six, and
the milkmen were calling their ware; soon the shop-shutters would be
coming down, and in this first flush of the day's enterprise, a last
belated vegetable-cart jolted towards the market. Mike's thoughts
flitted from the man who lay a-top taking his ease, his cap pulled
over his eyes, to the scene that was now taking place in the twilight
bedroom. What would Seymour say? Would he throw himself on his knees?
Frank spoke from time to time; his thoughts growled like a savage
dog, and his words bit at his friend. For Mike had incautiously given
an account in particular detail of his _tete-a-tete_ with Lady Helen.

"Then you are in a measure answerable for her death."

"You said just now that Harding was answerable; we can't both be
culpable."

Frank did not reply. He brooded in silence, losing all perception of
the truth in a stupid and harsh hatred of those whom he termed the
villains that ruined women. When they reached Leicester Square, to
escape from the obsession of the suicide, Mike said--

"I do not think that I told you that I have sketched out a trilogy on
the life of Christ. The first play _John_, the second _Christ_, the
third _Peter_. Of course I introduce Christ into the third play. You
know the legend. When Peter is flying from Rome to escape
crucifixion, he meets Christ carrying His cross."

"Damn your trilogy--who cares! You have behaved abominably. I wan