for the first time, saw in them what she had seen in his.

They dwelt on him; they widened; they almost smiled; they deeply
promised him all--all--that he most longed for. She was his, her son's;
she was not her husband's. What he had feared had never threatened him
or her. This was a gift she had won the right to give. The depth of her
repudiation yesterday gave her her warrant.

And to Amabel, while they looked into each other's eyes, it was as if,
in the darkness, some arching loveliness of dawn vaguely shaped itself
above the altar.

"Kiss me, dear Augustine," she said. She held up her forehead, closing
her eyes, for the kiss that was her own.

Augustine was gone. And now, before her, was the ugly breaking. But must
it be so ugly? Opening her eyes, she looked at her husband as he stood
before the fire, his wondering eyes upon her. Must it be ugly? Why could
it not be quiet and even kind?

Strangely there had gathered in her, during the long hours, the garnered
strength of her life of discipline and submission. It had sustained her
through the shudder that glanced back at yesterday--at the corruption
that had come so near; it had given sanity to see with eyes of
compassion the forsaken woman who had come with her courageous,
revengeful story; it gave sanity now, as she looked over at her husband,
to see him also, with those eyes of compassionate understanding; he was
not blackened, to her vision, by the shadowing corruption, but, in his
way, pitiful, too; all the worth of life lost to him.

And it seemed swiftest, simplest, and kindest, as she looked over at
him, to say:--"You see--Lady Elliston came this afternoon, and told me
everything."

Sir Hugh kept his face remarkably unmoved. He continued to gaze at his
wife with an unabashed, unstartled steadiness. "I might have guessed
that," he said after a short silence. "Confound her."

Amabel made no reply.

"So I suppose," Sir Hugh went on, "you feel you can't forgive me."

She hesitated, not quite understanding. "You mean--for having married
me--when you loved her?"

"Well, yes; but more for not having, long ago, in all these years, found
out that you were the woman that any man with eyes to see, any man not
blinded and fatuous, ought to have been in love with from the
beginning."

Amabel flushed. Her vision was untroubled; but the shadow hovered. She
was ashamed for him.

"No"; she said, "I did not think of that. I don't know that I have
anything to