his hands clasped
behind him. He was beginning to understand something of her nature; of
the nature of the woman to whom love has come as a thief in the night.
He was beginning to perceive that she had, in her ignorance, been ready
to entertain love without knowing what was entailed by entertaining him.
"If you would only trust me, all would be well."

She almost leaped from her chair.

"Would it?" she cried. "Would all be well? Would it be well with my
soul? Would it be well with both of us in the future? Would it be well
with my husband?"

He laughed.

"I know your husband," he said.

"And I know him, too," said she. "He cares for me no more than I care
for him, but he has never been otherwise than kind to me. I think of
him--I think of him. I know the name that men give to the man who tries
to make his friend's wife love him. It is not my husband who has earned
that name, Mr. Courtland."

He looked into her face, but he spoke no word. Even he--the lover--was
beginning to see, as in a glass, darkly, something of the conflict that
was going on in the heart of the woman before him. She had uttered words
against him, and they had stung him, and yet he had a feeling that, if
he had put his arms about her again, she would have held him close to
her as she had done before; she would have given him kiss for kiss as
she had done before. It is the decree of nature that the lover shall
think of himself only; but had he not told Phyllis that his belief
was that Nature and Satan were the same? He was sometimes able to say,
"_Retro me, Sathana_"--not always. He said it now, but not boldly, not
loudly--in a whisper. The best way of putting Satan behind one is to run
away from him. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Yes, but, on
the whole, it is safer to show him a clean pair of heels than to enter
on an argument with him, hoping that he will be amenable to logic.
Herbert Courtland said his, "_Retro me_," in a whisper, half hoping, as
the gentlewoman with the muffins for sale hoped, that he would escape
notice. For a few moments he ceased to think of himself. He thought of
that beautiful thing before him--she was tall, and her rosy white flesh
was as a peach that has reached its one hour of ripeness--he thought of
her and pitied her.

He had not the heart to put his arms about her, though he knew that to
do so would be to give him all the happiness for which he longed. What
was he that he should stand by and see t