ife which he cared for most--that Nan would despise him, that she would
denounce him as a sorry traitor to his friends, that the story--a
sufficiently black one, as he knew--would be published to the world.
Disgrace and failure had always been the things that he had chiefly
feared, and they lay straight before him now.

"I heard," Nan said, with white lips and choking utterance. "I was
asleep when you came, but I think I heard it all. Is it true? There was
some one--some one--that you left--for me?--some one who ought to have
been your wife?"

"I swear I never loved anyone but you," he broke out, roughly and
abruptly, able neither to repel nor to plead guilty to the charge she
made, but miserably conscious that his one false step might cost him all
that he held most dear. To Nan, the very vagueness and--as she deemed
it--the irrelevance of his answer constituted an acknowledgment of
guilt.

"Sydney," she murmured, catching at the table for support, and speaking
so brokenly that he had difficulty in distinguishing the words,
"Sydney--I cannot pay _this_ debt!"

And then she fell at his feet in a swoon, which at first he mistook for
death.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

"SO SHALL YE ALSO REAP."

For some time Nan's life hung in the balance. It seemed as though a
straw either way would suffice to turn the scales. Dead silence reigned
in the house in Thurloe Square: the street outside was ankle-deep in
straw: doctors and nurses took possession of Nan's pretty rooms, where
all her graceful devices and gentle handicrafts were set aside, and
their places filled with a grim array of medicaments. The servants, who
loved their mistress, went about with melancholy faces and muffled
voices; and the master of the house, hitherto so confident and
self-reliant, presented to the world a stony front of silent desolation,
for which nobody would have given Sydney Campion credit.

"Over-exertion or mental shock must have brought it on," said the
doctor, when questioned by Lady Pynsent as to the cause of Mrs.
Campion's illness.

"She can't have had a mental shock," said Lady Pynsent, decidedly. "She
must have over-excited herself. Do you know how she did it, Sydney?"

"She fainted at my feet almost as soon as I saw her," said Sydney. "I
don't know what she had been doing all the afternoon."

Nobody else seemed to know, either. The maid bore witness that her
mistress had insisted on going downstairs, and it was generally supposed
th