nt as she read. 'This is very good. I see only
one objection.'

'Objection!'

'You haven't sent it.'

'That is your fault.' And he looked as if he thought he spoke the truth.

'When did you write this?'

'Just before you came in--when she began to talk about----'

'Ah, Jean!' Vida gave him back the paper. 'That must have pleased Jean.'

It was a master stroke, the casual giving back, and the invocation of a
pleasure that had been strangled at the birth along with something
greater. Did he see before him again the girl's tear-filled, hopeless
eyes, that had not so much as read the wonderful message, too intent
upon the death-warrant of their common happiness? He threw himself
heavily into a chair, staring at the closed door. Behind it, in a prison
of which this woman held the key, Jean waited for her life sentence.
Stonor's look, his attitude, seemed to say that he too only waited now
to hear it. He dropped his head in his hand.

When Vida spoke, it was without raising her eyes from the ground.

'I could drive a hard-and-fast bargain with you; but I think I won't. If
love and ambition both urge you on, perhaps----' She looked up a little
defiantly, seeming to expect to meet triumph in his face. Instead, her
eye took in the profound hopelessness of the bent head, the slackness of
the big frame, that so suddenly had assumed a look of age. She went over
to him silently, and stood by his side. 'After all,' she said, 'life
hasn't been quite fair to you.' At the new thing in her voice he raised
his heavy eyes. 'You fall out of one ardent woman's dreams into
another's,' she said.

'Then you don't--after all, you don't mean to----'

'To keep you and her apart? No.'

For the first time tears came into his eyes.

After a little silence he held out his hand. 'What can I do for you?'

She seemed not to see the hand he offered. Or did she only see that it
was empty? She was looking at the other. Mere instinct made him close
his left hand more firmly on the message.

It was as if something finer than her slim fingers, the woman's
invisible antennae, felt the force that would need be overcome if trial
of strength should be precipitated then. Upon his 'What can I do?' she
shook her head.

'For the real you,' he said. 'Not the Reformer, or the would-be
politician--for the woman I so unwillingly hurt.' As she only turned
away, he stood up, detaining her with a hold upon her arm. 'You may not
believe it, but now that I