ed to love her. But such a man could not speak the truth.
He had tried to excuse himself in every way. To talk of love and its
purifying influence was only one of these ways. He would not even have
confessed if he had not fallen into the mistake of thinking she
understood that he was a thief, or head of a gang of thieves.

He seemed almost to boast of what he was.... Oh, how horrible life had
become, and how she wished that it were over! She wondered if it would
be wicked to pray that her heart might stop beating to-night.

Yet morning came and her heart beat on. She did not even feel very ill,
only weak, with a wiry throbbing of each separate nerve in her head. She
had meant to use the quiet hours to decide what must be done next, but
always, when she had tried to pin her mind to the question, it had
escaped like a fluttering moth, and turned to self-pity, or to calling
up pictures of the past which brought tears to her eyes.

Now the time was upon her when realities must be faced. Before seven
o'clock it was light, but neither she nor Knight were accustomed to early
tea, and there was more than an hour to spare before they would be called
by Parker.

The girl sat up shivering, though the room, heated by steam, had not
grown bitterly cold when the grate fire died. She looked, heavy-eyed,
toward her husband's closed door. They must talk things over, and make
some plan.

She hated the very word "plan" since his story of the trick he had played
at the Savoy. She hated the necessity to talk with him; but it _was_ a
necessity. They ought to arrange something for the future--the blank and
hateful future--before Parker came, and daily life began. There would be
many things to settle, questions to ask and answer; a sort of hideous
campaign would have to be mapped out in details not one of which defined
itself clearly in her tired brain.

"It's no use," she said to herself. "I can't think, after all, until I
see him again. Perhaps he will make some suggestions, and I can accept or
refuse. But I _can't_ go to his door and call him."

As she hesitated, Knight--who was a knight no longer in her eyes--opened
the door, very softly, not to disturb her if she slept. In the morning
light which paled the uncurtained window their eyes met.

Annesley slipped off the bed and stood up, cloaking her bare white neck
with her hair. Suddenly she felt that he was a strange man who had no
right to be in her room. He was not the husband sh