an stay where he may fall in love with you, merely
because you need him for a maiden aunt or something of the sort. And
that was the ultimate and entire extent of her affection for him,
strong though it had come to be.

"I think--I think that man had better go back to the place where he had
really belonged at first," she said in a low voice. "No matter how
much the girl missed him, or needed him, she had no right to want him
to be hurt by staying near her."

"You really think that?" he said.

"Yes," she answered. And then incoherently, "Oh, Mr. Pennington, I do
want to be good!"

She meant that she had done enough wrong, in acting as she had toward
Francis in the first place. She felt now, very strongly, that all the
trouble had come from her cowardice when Francis came home. She should
have shut her teeth and gone through the thing, no matter what her
personal feelings had been at first. It would all have come out right
then. She knew now that she and Francis, the plunge once taken, could
have stood each other. And she would have kept her faith. She had
learned the meaning of honor.

"You are good," said Pennington in a moved tone. "Then--I have my
answer. Yes--I'll go back."

She leaned her heavy head on the chair-back again. He seemed once more
suddenly remote.

"I--I wish you weren't going," she said, only half conscious of what
she said.

He leaned forward, suddenly moved, and caught her hand hard. Still in
that dream, she felt him kiss it. She did not care. And then, still
in the dream, Francis's quick tread up the steps, and his sharp voice--

"And I believed in you!"

CHAPTER XI

She looked at him in a blind sort of way. His words made only a hazy
impression; but neither of the men could know that.

"Believed in me?" she echoed, smiling faintly. "Why, did you?"

"Yes," said Francis with a concentrated fury that reached even her
confused senses. "But I never will again! I thought--I was beginning
to think--you were the sort of woman you said. But you're just a
flirt. Any man is better than the one you're married to."

"I--I think you want me to go," she said, trying to see him. She could
see two Francises, as a matter of fact, neither of them clearly.

"Yes, I do. Either of these men you've befooled can see you on your
way. And I'll start divorce proceedings, or you may, immediately."

He said more than that; but that was all she could get. The words hurt
her, i