and Sophy Viner entered. When she
saw him she paused on the threshold and half drew back.

"I was told that Mrs. Leath had sent for me."

"Mrs. Leath DID send for you. She'll be here presently; but I asked her
to let me see you first."

He spoke very gently, and there was no insincerity in his gentleness. He
was profoundly moved by the change in the girl's appearance. At sight
of him she had forced a smile; but it lit up her wretchedness like a
candle-flame held to a dead face.

She made no reply, and Darrow went on: "You must understand my wanting
to speak to you, after what I was told just now."

She interposed, with a gesture of protest: "I'm not responsible for
Owen's ravings!"

"Of course----". He broke off and they stood facing each other. She
lifted a hand and pushed back her loose lock with the gesture that was
burnt into his memory; then she looked about her and dropped into the
nearest chair.

"Well, you've got what you wanted," she said.

"What do you mean by what I wanted?"

"My engagement's broken--you heard me say so."

"Why do you say that's what I wanted? All I wished, from the beginning,
was to advise you, to help you as best I could----"

"That's what you've done," she rejoined. "You've convinced me that it's
best I shouldn't marry him."

Darrow broke into a despairing laugh. "At the very moment when you'd
convinced me to the contrary!"

"Had I?" Her smile flickered up. "Well, I really believed it till you
showed me...warned me..."

"Warned you?"

"That I'd be miserable if I married a man I didn't love."

"Don't you love him?"

She made no answer, and Darrow started up and walked away to the
other end of the room. He stopped before the writing-table, where his
photograph, well-dressed, handsome, self-sufficient--the portrait of a
man of the world, confident of his ability to deal adequately with
the most delicate situations--offered its huge fatuity to his gaze. He
turned back to her. "It's rather hard on Owen, isn't it, that you should
have waited until now to tell him?"

She reflected a moment before answering. "I told him as soon as I knew."

"Knew that you couldn't marry him?"

"Knew that I could never live here with him." She looked about the room,
as though the very walls must speak for her.

For a moment Darrow continued to search her face perplexedly; then their
eyes met in a long disastrous gaze.

"Yes----" she said, and stood up.

Below the window they heard Ef