and said:

"Well, Gyp, we must go for the divorce, then, after all."

She shook her head.

"It's too late. Let HIM divorce me, if he only will!"

Winton needed all his self-control at that moment. Too late? Already!
Sudden recollection that he had not the right to say a word alone kept
him silent. Gyp went on:

"I love him, with every bit of me. I don't care what comes--whether it's
open or secret. I don't care what anybody thinks."

She had turned round now, and if Winton had doubt of her feeling, he lost
it. This was a Gyp he had never seen! A glowing, soft, quick-breathing
creature, with just that lithe watchful look of the mother cat or lioness
whose whelps are threatened. There flashed through him a recollection of
how, as a child, with face very tense, she would ride at fences that were
too big. At last he said:

"I'm sorry you didn't tell me sooner."

"I couldn't. I didn't know. Oh, Dad, I'm always hurting you! Forgive
me!"

She was pressing his hand to her cheek that felt burning hot. And he
thought: "Forgive! Of course I forgive. That's not the point; the point
is--"

And a vision of his loved one talked about, besmirched, bandied from
mouth to mouth, or else--for her what there had been for him, a
hole-and-corner life, an underground existence of stealthy meetings kept
dark, above all from her own little daughter. Ah, not that! And
yet--was not even that better than the other, which revolted to the soul
his fastidious pride in her, roused in advance his fury against tongues
that would wag, and eyes that would wink or be uplifted in righteousness?
Summerhay's world was more or less his world; scandal, which--like all
parasitic growths--flourishes in enclosed spaces, would have every
chance. And, at once, his brain began to search, steely and quick, for
some way out; and the expression as when a fox broke covert, came on his
face.

"Nobody knows, Gyp?"

"No; nobody."

That was something! With an irritation that rose from his very soul, he
muttered:

"I can't stand it that you should suffer, and that fellow Fiorsen go
scot-free. Can you give up seeing Summerhay while we get you a divorce?
We might do it, if no one knows. I think you owe it to me, Gyp."

Gyp got up and stood by the window a long time without answering. Winton
watched her face. At last she said:

"I couldn't. We might stop seeing each other; it isn't that. It's what
I should feel. I shouldn't respect my