After a time I found myself answering in the same tones, and even when
speaking on the most matter-of-fact subjects I felt as if I were saying
the sweetest things a woman could say to a man.

We sat a long time so, and every moment we were together seemed to make
our relation more perilous, until at length the sweet seductive twilight
of the shortening autumn day began to frighten me, and making excuse of
a headache I said I must go indoors.

He walked with me up the stone-stairway and into my boudoir, until we
got to the very door of my room, and then suddenly he took up both my
hands and kissed them passionately.

I felt the colour rushing to my cheeks and I had an almost irresistible
impulse to do something in return. But conquering it with a great
effort, I turned quickly into my bedroom, shut the door, pulled down the
blinds and then sat and covered my face and asked myself, with many
bitter pangs, if it could possibly be true (as I had been taught to
believe) that our nature was evil and our senses were always tempting us
to our destruction.

Several hours passed while I sat in the darkness with this warfare going
on between my love and my religion, and then Price came to dress me for
dinner, and she was full of cheerful gossip.

"Men are _such_ children," she said; "they can't help giving themselves
away, can they?"

It turned out that after I had left the lawn she had had some
conversation with Martin, and I could see that she was eager to tell me
what he had said about myself.

"The talk began about your health and altered looks, my lady. 'Don't
you think your mistress is looking ill?' said he. 'A little,' I said.
'But her body is not so ill as her heart, if you ask me,' said I."

"You never said that, Price?"

"Well, I could not help saying it if I thought so, could I?"

"And what did he say?"

"He didn't say anything then, my lady, but when I said, 'You see, sir,
my lady is tied to a husband she doesn't love,' he said, 'How can she,
poor thing? 'Worse than that,' I said, 'her husband loves another
woman.' 'The fool! Where does he keep his eyes?' said he. 'Worse still,'
said I, 'he flaunts his infidelities in her very face.' 'The brute!' he
said, and his face looked so fierce that you would have thought he
wanted to take his lordship by the throat and choke him. 'Why doesn't
she leave the man?' said he. 'That's what I say, sir, but I think it's
her religion,' I said. 'Then God help her, for th