to wish him
either alive or dead, either in vigour or at rest? Sin or no sin, that
was the desire in her heart, and it would not be stifled however much she
accused its inhumanity or recognised the want of love in it. Was the
fault all hers? With her lips still burning from the lie that she had
told for him, she could not answer 'yes.'

Still and silent Quisante lay on his bed. His head was quite clear now
and his eyes grew brighter. He watched Lady Mildmay as she ministered to
him, and he watched his wife with his old quick furtive glances, so keen
to mark every shade of her manner towards him. She had never really
deceived him as to her thoughts of him; she did not deceive him now. He
knew that her sympathies were estranged, more estranged than they had
ever been before. So far as the reason lay in the incident of Ashwood, it
was hidden from him; he knew nothing of the last great shame that he had
put on her. But long before this he had recognised where his power over
her lay, by what means he had gained and by what he kept it; he had been
well aware that if she were still to be under his sway, the conquest must
be held by his achievements; he himself was as nothing beside them. Now,
as he lay, he was thinking what would happen. He also had heard the
doctor's story or enough of it to enable him to guess the purport of
their sentence on him; he was to live as an invalid, to abandon all his
ambitions, to throw away all that made people admire him or made him
something in the world's eyes and something great in hers. On these terms
and on these only life was offered to him now; if he refused, if he
defied nature, then he must go on with the sword ever hanging over him,
in the knowledge that it soon must fall. He told himself that, yet was
but half-convinced. Need it fall? With the first spurt of renewed
strength he raised that question and argued it, till he seemed able to
say 'It may fall,' rather than 'It must.'

What should be his course then? The world thought it had done with him.
All seemed gone for which his wife had prized him. Should he accept that,
and in its acceptance take up his life as valetudinarian, his life
forgotten of the world which he had loved to conquer, barren of interest
for the woman whom it had been his strongest passion to win against her
instincts, to hold as it were against her will, and to fascinate in face
of her distaste? Such were the terms offered; Alexander Quisante lay long
hours ope