is
to make you buy him back from her." She stood up and came to him with
outstretched hands. "Perhaps I can be of use to you at last!"

"You?" He summoned up a haggard smile. "As if you weren't
always--letting me load you with all my bothers!"

"Oh, if only I've hit on the way out of this one! Then there wouldn't be
any others left!" Her eyes followed him intently as he turned away
to the window and stood staring down at the sultry prospect of Fifth
Avenue. As he turned over her conjecture its probability became more and
more apparent. It put into logical relation all the incoherencies of
Undine's recent conduct, completed and defined her anew as if a sharp
line had been drawn about her fading image.

"If it's that, I shall soon know," he said, turning back into the room.
His course had instantly become plain. He had only to resist and Undine
would have to show her hand. Simultaneously with this thought there
sprang up in his mind the remembrance of the autumn afternoon in Paris
when he had come home and found her, among her half-packed finery,
desperately bewailing her coming motherhood. Clare's touch was on his
arm. "If I'm right--you WILL let me help?"

He laid his hand on hers without speaking, and she went on:

"It will take a lot of money: all these law-suits do. Besides, she'd be
ashamed to sell him cheap. You must be ready to give her anything she
wants. And I've got a lot saved up--money of my own, I mean..."

"Your own?" As he looked at her the rare blush rose under her brown
skin.

"My very own. Why shouldn't you believe me? I've been hoarding up my
scrap of an income for years, thinking that some day I'd find I couldn't
stand this any longer..." Her gesture embraced their sumptuous setting.
"But now I know I shall never budge. There are the children; and
besides, things are easier for me since--" she paused, embarrassed.

"Yes, yes; I know." He felt like completing her phrase: "Since my wife
has furnished you with the means of putting pressure on your husband--"
but he simply repeated: "I know."

"And you WILL let me help?"

"Oh, we must get at the facts first." He caught her hands in his with
sudden energy. "As you say, when Paul's safe there won't be another
bother left!"

XXXIV

The means of raising the requisite amount of money became, during the
next few weeks, the anxious theme of all Ralph's thoughts. His lawyers'
enquiries soon brought the confirmation of Clare's surmise, and it