tle freak, dear; and let
us be human beings once more, living in a world that cannot be taken so
seriously. Don't go by the evening train, Phyllis; stay all night with
me. I have so much to say to you. I want to talk to you. How can you
leave me here all alone?"

Phyllis could have told her that how she could leave her all alone was
because Herbert Courtland had left for London on the previous day. She
did not make an explanation to her on this basis, however; she merely
said that it would interfere with her plans to remain longer at The
Moorings. She had to attend that great function with her father that
night.

Ella called her very unkind, but showed no desire to revert to the topic
upon which they had been conversing, when she had thought fit to ask her
that jocular question which Phyllis had said she would forget.

But Phyllis did not keep her word. On the contrary she thought of
nothing else but that question all the time she was in the railway
carriage going to Paddington.

It was a terrible question in Phyllis' eyes for a woman with a husband
to put to her girl-friend.

More than once during the week Phyllis had been led to ask herself if
she was quite certain that her terrible surmise regarding the influence
which dominated Ella's recent actions was true. Now and again she felt
an impulse to fall upon her knees and pray, as she had once before
prayed, that the sin of that horrible suspicion might be forgiven her.
How could it be possible, she thought, that Ella should forget all that
a true woman should ever remember!

But now--now, as she sat in the train on her way back to London, there
was no room left in her mind for doubt on this matter. The tragic
earnestness with which Ella had asked her that question, tightening her
fingers upon her wrists? "_Will you give up Herbert Courtland in order
to help me?_"--the passionate whisper, the quivering lips--all told her
with overwhelming force that what she had surmised was the truth.

She felt that Ella had confessed to her that her infatuation--Phyllis
called it infatuation--had not passed away, though she had been strong
enough upon that night, when her husband had so suddenly returned, to
fly from its consequences. No, her infatuation had not died.

But Herbert Courtland--what of him? He had also had strength--once.
Would he have strength again? He had told her, while they were together
in one of the boats drifting down the placid river, that he believed