I saw you. Didn't you
feel, even when we were separated, that my love was inextinguishable?
Didn't you feel it always with you? Oh, my dear, my dear, you must have
known that death was too weak to touch my love! I tried to crush it,
because neither you nor I was free. Your husband was my friend. I
couldn't do anything blackguardly. I ran away from you. What a fool you
must have thought me! And now I know that at last we were both free, I
might have made you love me. I had my chance of happiness at last; what
I'd longed for, cursing myself for treachery, had come to pass. But I
never knew. In my weakness I surrendered my freedom. O God! what shall I
do?"

He hid his face in his hands and groaned with agony. Mrs. Wallace was
silent for a while.

"I don't know if it will be any consolation for you," she said at last;
"you're sure to know sooner or later, and I may as well tell you now.
I'm engaged to be married."

"What!" cried James, springing up. "It's not true; it's not true!"

"Why not? Of course it's true!"

"You can't--oh, my dearest, be kind to me!"

"Don't be silly, there's a good boy! You're going to be married yourself
in a month, and you really can't expect me to remain single because you
fancy you care for me. I shouldn't have told you, only I thought it
would make things easier for you."

"You never cared two straws for me! I knew that. You needn't throw it in
my face."

"After all, I was a married woman."

"I wonder how much you minded when you heard your husband was lying dead
on the veldt?"

"My dear boy, he wasn't; he died of fever at Durban--quite comfortably,
in a bed."

"Were you sorry?"

"Of course I was! He was extremely satisfactory--and not at all
exacting."

James did not know why he asked the questions; they came to his lips
unbidden. He was sick at heart, angry, contemptuous.

"I'm going to marry a Mr. Bryant--but, of course, not immediately," she
went on, occupied with her own thoughts, and pleased to talk of them.

"What is he?"

"Nothing! He's a landed proprietor." She said this with a certain pride.

James looked at her scornfully; his love all through had been mingled
with contrary elements; and trying to subdue it, he had often insisted
upon the woman's vulgarity, and lack of taste, and snobbishness. He
thought bitterly now that the daughter of the Portuguese and of the
riding-master had done very well for herself.

"Really, I think you're awfully unreasonable," sh