satisfying her
ideal. The ideal itself had vanished in the personality of the man who
had taken her in his arms the previous night and poured his passionate
love into her ears.

"It is n't a question of forgiving, Tom," she said, after a pause; and
her tone was conciliatory. "It's a question of discovery. I was
deceived in you. I did n't think you capable of such--such weakness
and vulgarity. It was my fault of judgement, perhaps, but the
awakening is fatal. Can't you see that?"

"What do you mean to do?" he demanded, glaring at her helplessly.
Their points of view were so different, her expression so unrelenting,
that the self-justification he had planned to speak was choked in his
throat. "Do you mean to get a divorce? I tell you, Felicity, there 's
no cause."

"I don't know yet what I mean to do," she said frankly.

"I 'll call upon your father, then," he declared grimly, "and see what
he thinks of it." An ugly gleam shone in his eyes, as he uttered the
threat. It was plain now that love for his wife was the least of his
motives in demanding her; there was ambition, but, strongest of all, a
desire for revenge on the bishop and his class. He would make them
accept him at last. They should pay dearly for their scorn. "I 'll
not be elbowed out of the way and kept in the closet like a family
skeleton any longer," he went on. "The limit of my endurance has been
reached."

Felicity now saw clearly what she had brought upon herself. She paled
with fear, and flushed with anger, but neither emotion coloured her
reply.

"You must give me a few days longer. I prefer to see my father
first--alone. I will let you know--I'll write."

So absorbed were they in their own tense feelings that they failed to
hear the opening and shutting of the front door, which was left
unlatched during the day for just such unconventional calls as the one
Mrs. Parr now happened to make. The first intimation they had of
interruption was her shrill and terror-stricken cry: "Felicity!
Felicity! Your maid is here in the hall--dead!"

Emmet reached Lena's side first. He raised her in his arms and carried
her into the room he had just left, where he laid her gently on a
couch. Felicity had already run upstairs for brandy and
smelling-salts. Emmet, standing over Lena in guilty solicitude,
addressed Mrs. Parr.

"Open the window," he said brusquely, "and give her some air."

She obeyed without question, and Felicity, return