r her was the deep conviction that he gave her
mind what no one else gave it, that he was the being who knew the song
her spirit sang.... He should not go forever from her and with so
cynical a completeness. He should return; he should not triumph in his
self-righteousness, be a living reproach to her always by his careless
indifference to everything that had ever been between them. If he
treated her so because of what she had done to him, with what savagery
might not she be treated, if all that had happened in the last three
years were open as a book before him!

Her husband--she had not thought of that. So much had happened in the
past three years; there had been so much adulation and worship and
daring assault upon her heart--or emotions--from quarters of unusual
distinction, that the finest sense of her was blunted, and true
proportions were lost. Rudyard ought never to have made that five
months' visit to South Africa a year before, leaving her alone to make
the fight against the forces round her. Those five months had brought a
change in her, had made her indignant at times against Rudyard.

"Why did he go to South Africa? Why did he not take me with him? Why
did he leave me here alone?" she had asked herself. She did not realize
that there would have been no fighting at all, that all the forces
contending against her purity and devotion would never have gathered at
her feet and washed against the shores of her resolution, if she had
loved Rudyard Byng when she married him as she might have loved him,
ought to have loved him.

The faithful love unconsciously announces its fidelity, and men
instinctively are aware of it, and leave it unassailed. It is the
imperfect love which subtly invites the siege, which makes the call
upon human interest, selfishness, or sympathy, so often without
intended unscrupulousness at first. She had escaped the suspicion, if
not the censure, of the world--or so she thought; and in the main she
was right. But she was now embarked on an enterprise which never would
have been begun, if she had not gambled with her heart and soul three
years ago; if she had not dragged away the veil from her inner self,
putting her at the mercy of one who could say, "I know you--what you
are."

Just before they went to the dining-room Byng came in and cheerily
greeted Stafford, apologizing for having forgotten his engagement to
dine with Wallstein.

"But you and Jasmine will have much to talk about,"