ld do what you've done, he might live," she said.

Marchmont nodded gravely; it was easy to see the odd way in which his
action fitted into the drama of her life.

"But we've no hills," she went on. "You leave London--all London
means--to wander on hills, high glorious hills; he'd leave it for a
villa, a small villa at a seaside place."

"Metaphors again?"

"It comes easier to talk in them sometimes. And I--I'm of my husband's
way of thinking."

"I don't believe it," he said again, but looking at her now with a little
touch of doubt.

"You'll never come back, will you?" she asked.

"Never," said he with a quiet certainty.

She rose with a restless sigh and walked to the fireplace.

"I couldn't," he went on. "I'm not fit for it; that's the end of the
matter. Use your own term of abuse. I shall hear plenty of them."

"I don't want to abuse you," she said. She walked quickly over to him,
gave him her hand for a moment, and then returned to her place. "But it
makes me feel rather strange to you." She looked full at him with a plain
distress in her eyes, and her voice shook a little. "I'm coming to feel
more strange towards you," she went on. "I thought we had got nearer at
Ashwood, we did for the moment. But now I'm farther off again."

"I would have you always very near," he said in low tones, his eyes
saying more than his lips.

"I know. And perhaps you've had thoughts----" She paused before she added,
"Alexander's quite set on his course, nothing will stop him--except the
thing that I expect to stop him. You know what I mean?"

Marchmont nodded again.

"And he's doing it a good deal because of me. I wonder if you understand
that?"

"I don't know that I do."

"No; he knows more of me than you do."

She became silent, and he, watching her, was silent too. What was this
strangeness of which she spoke? He felt it too but without understanding
it. It caused in him a vague discomfort, an apprehension that some
obstacle was between them, something more than any external hindrance, a
thing which might perhaps remain though all external hindrance were
removed. Her last words both puzzled and wounded him with their
implication of a deeper sympathy between Quisante and herself than
existed or could exist between her and him. That he did not understand,
and could not without giving up his own idea of her, the May Gaston
which, as she said, he had made for himself. Was his image gone indeed?
Had Alexander Quisan