to a sofa, to an adjusted light, to the papers on her
knee. Then Delafield withdrew and took up a book.

She could not rest, however; visions of the morrow and of Warkworth's
triumphant looks kept flashing through her. Yet all the while
Delafield's presence haunted her--she could not forget him, and
presently she addressed him.

"Mr. Delafield!"

He heard the low voice and came.

"I have never thanked you for your goodness last night. I do thank you
now--most earnestly."

"You needn't. You know very well what I would do to serve you if I
could."

"Even when you think me in the wrong?" said Julie, with a little,
hysterical laugh.

Her conscience smote her. Why provoke this intimate talk--wantonly--with
the man she had made suffer? Yet her restlessness, which was partly
nervous fatigue, drove her on.

Delafield flushed at her words.

"How have I given you cause to say that?"

"Oh, you are very transparent. One sees that you are always troubling
yourself about the right and wrong of things."

"All very well for one's self," said Delafield, trying to laugh. "I hope
I don't seem to you to be setting up as a judge of other people's right
and wrong?"

"Yes, yes, you do!" she said, passionately. Then, as he winced, "No, I
don't mean that. But you do judge--it is in your nature--and other
people feel it."

"I didn't know I was such a prig," said Delafield, humbly. "It is true I
am always puzzling over things."

Julie was silent. She was indeed secretly convinced that he no more
approved the escapade of the night before than did Sir Wilfrid Bury.
Through the whole evening she had been conscious of a watchful anxiety
and resistance on his part. Yet he had stood by her to the end--so
warmly, so faithfully.

He sat down beside her, and Julie felt a fresh pang of remorse, perhaps
of alarm. Why had she called him to her? What had they to do with each
other? But he soon reassured her. He began to talk of Meredith, and the
work before her--the important and glorious work, as he naively termed
it, of the writer.

And presently he turned upon her with sudden feeling.

"You accused me, just now, of judging what I have no business to judge.
If you think that I regret the severance of your relation with Lady
Henry, you are quite, quite mistaken. It has been the dream of my life
this last year to see you free--mistress of your own life. It--it made
me mad that you should be ordered about like a child--dependent upon
a