ey,
Adam? And if I had--should I have given it up to be divorced because you
gave jewels to an actress? I loved you, and I wanted your love, or
nothing. You couldn't be faithful--commonly, decently faithful, for one
year--and I got myself free from you, because I would not be your wife,
nor eat your bread, nor touch your hand, if you couldn't love me. Don't
say that you ever loved me, except my face. We hadn't been divorced a
year when you married again. Don't say that you loved me! You loved your
wife--your second wife--perhaps. I hope so. I hope you love her now--and
I dare say you do, for she looks happy--but don't say that you ever
loved me--just long enough to marry me and betray me!"

"You're hard, Lucy. You're as hard as ever you were twenty years ago,"
said Adam Johnstone.

As he leaned forward, resting an elbow on his knee, he passed his brown
hand across his eyes, and then stared vaguely at the white walls of the
old hotel beyond the platform.

"But you know that I'm right," answered Mrs. Bowring. "Perhaps I'm
hard, too. I'm sorry. You said that you had been mad, I remember--I
don't like to think of all you said, but you said that. And I remember
thinking that I had been much more mad than you, to have married you,
but that I should soon be really mad--raving mad--if I remained your
wife. I couldn't. I should have died. Afterwards I thought it would have
been better if I had died then. But I lived through it. Then, after the
death of my old aunt, I was alone. What was I to do? I was poor and
lonely, and a divorced woman, though the right had been on my side.
Richard Bowring knew all about it, and I married him. I did not love you
any more, then, but I told him the truth when I told him that I could
never love any one again. He was satisfied--so we were married."

"I don't blame you," said Sir Adam.

"Blame me! No--it would hardly be for you to blame me, if I could make
anything of the shreds of my life which I had saved from yours. For that
matter--you were free too. It was soon done, but why should I blame you
for that? You were free--by the law--to go where you pleased, to love
again, and to marry at once. You did. Oh no! I don't blame you for
that!"

Both were silent for some time. But Mrs. Bowring's eyes still had an
indignant light in them, and her fingers twitched nervously from time to
time. Sir Adam stared stolidly at the white wall, without looking at his
former wife.

"I've been talking abou