noble."

Lucy naturally enough preferred praise to blame, and this showed in her
face and in her voice. I felt infinitely removed from our previous
terms of intimate confidence, when she said: "Couldn't or wouldn't,
it's history that I didn't."

"That being so," I said, "I think you should go now to your husband and
tell him that love or no love you propose to be his faithful wife till
death part you; to put him first in your head, if not in your heart.
It may be that through a long course of simulation you will come once
more to care for him. Self-sacrifice is a noble weapon. I think,
Lucy, that you would be very wise if you told him that two is not a
lucky number."

"I don't understand."

"Jock and Hurry," I said, "are two."

She changed color to the roots of her hair. "Oh," she cried, "you
don't understand how a woman feels about that! I'd rather die. I--I
_couldn't_!"

"You _won't_."

"I thought _you_ understood me better. I thought _you_ wanted me to be
happy!"

"Upon my soul, Lucy, I think that you might find happiness that way."

She shrugged her shoulders and her face looked hard as marble. "And
that's your advice!" she said. And then with a sudden change of
expression, "It's what you think I _ought_ to do. Would it please you
if I took your advice? Is it what you _want_ me to do?"

I had spoken as I thought duty commanded. It hadn't been easy. With
each word I felt that I had lost ground in her estimation. She asked
that last question with the expression of a weary woebegone child, and
I answered it without thought, and upon the urge of a wrong impulse.

"No--no," I cried. "It's not what I want you to do. I had almost
rather see you dead."

There was a long silence.

"Do you mean that?"

"Yes, Lucy. Yes."

"Then you _do_ care. Oh, thank God!"

I don't know how she got there. It was as if I had waked up and found
her in my arms.

Kissed and kissing, we heard the opening of the distant front door.
And Oh, how I wish I had found the courage when Fulton came into the
livingroom, to tell him that I loved his wife, and that she loved me,
and what was he going to do about it! I did have the impulse, but not
the courage. When Fulton came in Lucy was knitting at an interminable
green necktie, and I was talking to her from a far chair across an open
number of the illustrated _London News_. We looked, I believe, as
casual and innocent as cherubim, but my conscience was very g