te.'
No, no, no; I will trust my instinct now. I am natural, I am true, I
hide nothing. I take my courage in both hands. I do not hide my head in
the sands. I have given, because I chose to give, and I made and make
no presences to myself. I answer to myself, and I do not play false
with the world or with you. Whatever I am the world can know, for I
deceive no one, and I have no fears. But you--oh, why, why is it I feel
now, suddenly, that you have the strain of the coward in you! Why it
comes to me now I do not know; but it is here"--she pressed her hand
tremblingly to her heart--"and I will not act as though it wasn't here.
I'm not of this world."

She waved a hand towards the ball-room. "I am not of the world that
lives in terror of itself. Mine is a world apart, where one acts and
lives and sings the passion and sorrows and joys of others--all unreal,
unreal. The one chance of happiness we artists have is not to act in
our own lives, but to be true--real and true. For one's own life as
well as one's work to be all grease-paint--no, no, no. I have hid all
that has been between us, because of things that have nothing to do
with fear or courage, and for your sake; but I haven't acted, or
pretended. I have not flaunted my private life, my wretched sin--"

"The sin of an angel--"

She shrank from the blatant insincerity of the words, and still more
from the tone. Why had it not all seemed insincere before?

"But I was true in all I did, and I believed you were," she continued.

"And you don't believe it now?"

"To-night I do not. What I shall feel to-morrow I cannot tell. Maybe I
shall go blind again, for women are never two days alike in their minds
or bodies." She threw up her hands with a despairing helplessness. "But
we shall not meet till to-morrow, and then I go back to London. I am
going to my room now. You may tell Mrs. Byng that I am not well enough
to sing--and indeed I am not well," she added, huskily. "I am sick at
heart with I don't know what; but I am wretched and angry and
dangerous--and bad."

Her eyes fastened his with a fateful bitterness and gloom. "Where is
Mr. Byng?" she added, sharply. "Why was he not at dinner?"

He hailed the change of idea gladly. He spoke quickly, eagerly. "He was
kept at the mine. There's trouble--a strike. He was needed. He has
great influence with the men, and the masters, too. You heard Mrs. Byng
say why he had not returned."

"No; I was thinking of other things.