er or happier, I would go."

"But the House?----"

"Nothing easier than to accept the Chiltern Hundreds," said Sydney.

"And your profession?" said Nan, raising herself on one arm and looking
keenly at him.

She saw that he winced at the question, but he scarcely paused before he
replied.

"I have thought it well over. I could go on practising when I came back
to England; and in the meantime----I suppose you would have to take me
abroad, Nan: I could not well take you," he said with a grim sort of
jocularity, which she could not help seeing was painful to him. "If it
did you good, as Burrows thinks it would, I should be quite prepared to
give up everything else."

"Give up everything else," Nan murmured. "For me?"

He drew a long breath. "Well, yes. The fact is I have lost some of my
old interest in my work, compared with other things. I have come to
this, Nan--I would let my career go to the winds, if by doing so, I
could give you back strength and happiness. Tell me what I can do: that
is all. I have caused you a great deal of misery, I know: if there is
any way in which I can----atone----"

He did not go on, and for a few moments Nan could not speak. There was
color enough in her cheeks now, and light in her eyes, but she turned
away from him, and would not let him see her face.

"I want to think over what you have said. Please don't think me
ungracious or unkind, Sydney. I want to do what is best. We can talk
about it another time, can we not?"

"Any time you like."

And then he left her, and she lay still.

Had she been wrong all the while? Had she of her own free will allowed
herself to drift into this state of languor, and weakness, and
indifference to everything? What did these doctors know--what did Sydney
himself know--of the great wave of disgust and shame and scorn that had
passed over her soul and submerged all that was good and fair? They
could not understand: she said to herself passionately that no man could
understand the recoil of a woman's heart against sensual passion and
impurity. In her eyes Sydney had fallen as much as the woman whom he had
betrayed, although she knew that the world would not say so; and in his
degradation she felt herself included. She was dragged down to his
level--_she_ was dragged through the mire: that was the thought that
scorched her from time to time like a darting flame of fire. For Nan was
very proud, although she looked so gentle, and she had never before