o oblige me, provided I don't
borrow money of them. I have written to Romayne, under cover to one of
my friends living in Rome. Wherever he may be, there my letter will find
him."

So far, I listened quietly enough, naturally supposing that Mrs.
Eyrecourt trusted to her own arguments and persuasions. I confess it
even to myself, with shame. It was a relief to me to feel that the
chances (with such a fanatic as Romayne) were a hundred to one against
her.

This unworthy way of thinking was instantly checked by Mrs. Eyrecourt's
next words.

"Don't suppose that I am foolish enough to attempt to reason with him,"
she went on. "My letter begins and ends on the first page. His wife has
a claim on him, which no newly-married man can resist. Let me do him
justice. He knew nothing of it before he went away. My letter--my
daughter has no suspicion that I have written it--tells him plainly what
the claim is."

She paused. Her eyes softened, her voice sank low--she became quite
unlike the Mrs. Eyrecourt whom I knew.

"In a few months more, Winterfield," she said, "my poor Stella will be a
mother. My letter calls Romayne back to his wife--_and his child."_

Mrs. Eyrecourt paused, evidently expecting me to offer an opinion of
some sort. For the moment I was really unable to speak. Stella's mother
never had a very high opinion of my abilities. She now appeared to
consider me the stupidest person in the circle of her acquaintance.

"Are you a little deaf, Winterfield?" she asked.

"Not that I know of."

"Do you understand me?"

"Oh, yes."

"Then why can't you say something? I want a man's opinion of our
prospects. Good gracious, how you fidget! Put yourself in Romayne's
place, and tell me this. If _you_ had left Stella--"

"I should never have left her, Mrs. Eyrecourt."

"Be quiet. You don't know what you would have done. I insist on your
supposing yourself to be a weak, superstitious, conceited, fanatical
fool. You understand? Now, tell me, then. Could you keep away from your
wife, when you were called back to her in the name of your firstborn
child? Could you resist that?"

"Most assuredly not!"

I contrived to reply with an appearance of tranquillity. It was not
very easy to speak with composure. Envious, selfish, contemptible--no
language is too strong to describe the turn my thoughts now took. I
never hated any human being as I hated Romayne at that moment. "Damn
him, he will come back!" There was my inmost fee