on I think she called him."

Philip has heard enough, he turns away with a groan.

Mrs. Grebby watches the dark despair creep over his features in blank
amazement.

"What does it mean?" she asks, detaining him with a trembling hand.

"It means," replies Philip in a choking voice, "that Eleanor has left
me."

A cry escapes Mrs. Grebby, she buries her face in her apron, rocking
herself to and fro, moaning pitifully.

"We, as always kep' ourselves respectable, and never knew what it was
to blush for any of our stock, and she 'as lifted the family, and
married a good, real gentleman like yourself, sir, to bring disgrace
and ruin on 'er 'appy 'ome. Oh! my, oh! my, the poor misguided lass!"

Philip, in his own agony, finds himself comforting the weeping woman,
and praying her to bear up. Then, as she dries her streaming eyes,
clasping his hand with a hoarse "God bless you, Mr. Roche," he hastens
away with bent head and throbbing brow back over the green grass.

No curse rises to his silent lips; he is as one who has just heard of
the sudden death of his dearest upon earth. Everything seems slipping
from him. There is a long stretch of blank life before his bloodshot
eyes.

He waits in a state of nervous prostration on a wooden bench at
Copthorne Station till the return train to town appears.

Then he staggers forward into the first empty carriage, buries his face
on the cushions, and sobs.

His strong frame shakes like a reed with the violence of his grief. He
is weak, too, from having fasted since the previous night, and does not
attempt to control his sorrow.

The maddening thought of Eleanor and Quinton together adds gall and
wormwood to the desolation in the deserted husband's heart.

"With Quinton!" He repeats the words, grinding his teeth. Quinton,
the low scoundrel, the fast, fascinating man of bad reputation, the
villain who has betrayed his wife, his angel, and dragged her to the
lowest depths of degradation! She is beyond Philip's help now, and he
knows it--beyond redemption!

The Rubicon has been crossed. Eleanor is among the lost--on the other
side!

Erminie is sitting under the pale light of a yellow lamp, deep in a
novel.

The heroine is wavering on the verge of an irredeemable error, and
Erminie's kind heart is thoroughly in the book. She is a sympathetic
reader, and her eyes moisten as they scan the pages.

She is guilty of serious skipping, and as steps are heard in the hall
b