h her tears.
"Now I don't believe he'll ever really forgive me, or love me properly
again."

And, in a measure, she was right. Trust her he might, as in duty
bound; but to be as he had been before eating the bitter fruit of
knowledge was, for the present at all events, out of his power.

Since their momentous talk nearly a week ago, Evelyn had felt herself
imperceptibly held at arms' length, and the vagueness of the sensation
increased her discomfort tenfold. No word of reproach had passed his
lips, nor any further mention of Diamond or the bills; nothing so
quickly breeds constraint between two people as conscious avoidance of
a subject that is seldom absent from the minds of both. Yet Theo was
scrupulously kind, forbearing, good-tempered--everything, in short,
save the tender, lover-like husband he had been to her during the
first eighteen months of marriage. And she had only herself to
blame,--there lay the sharpest pang of all. Life holds no anodyne for
the sorrows we bring upon ourselves.

As the days wore on she watched Theo's face anxiously, at post time,
for any sign of an answer to that hateful advertisement; and before
the week's end she knew that the punishment that should have been hers
had fallen on her husband's shoulders.

Coming into breakfast one morning, she found him studying an open
letter with a deep furrow between his brows. At sight of her he
started and slipped it into his pocket.

The meal was a silent one. Evelyn found the pattern of her plate
curiously engrossing. Desmond, after a few hurried mouthfuls, excused
himself and went out. Then Evelyn looked up; and the tears that hung
on her lashes overflowed.

"He--he's gone to the stables, Honor," she said brokenly. "He got an
answer this morning;--I'm sure he did. But he--he won't tell me
anything now. Where's the _use_ of being married to him if he's always
going on like this? I wish--I wish he could sell--_me_ to that man,
instead of Diamond. He wouldn't mind it _half_ as much----"

And with this tragic announcement--which, for at least five minutes,
she implicitly believed--her head went down upon her hands.

Honor soothed her very tenderly, realising that she sorrowed with the
despair of a child who sees the world's end in every broken toy.

"Hush--hush!" she remonstrated. "You mustn't think anything so
foolish, so unjust. Theo is very magnanimous, Evelyn. He will see you
are sorry, and then it will all go smoothly again."

"But