him about his part. There are a few points----"

"Delacour's address?" said the manager. "Don't know it. Oh, yes, of
course!" He tore a little notebook out of his pocket. Then he suddenly
looked up at her. "Don't go to him. Send for him, if you like, or see
him here. He'll be here in an hour--at least, he will be if Smith is
worth his salt. I've bribed him to keep a lynx eye on him day and night,
and bring him up to time. But don't go and see him. I suppose you know
he----"

"He's married?" gasped Marion.

The manager laughed scornfully.

"He _drinks_, my dear lady. He drinks. He's only just out of an
inebriates' home. But don't alarm yourself. If he's watched, I dare say
we shall manage all right. I hope to goodness we shall! Don't look so
scared. Smith has charge of him, and he is accustomed to the job. He was
quite sober last night. I hear he always is after an outbreak. You're
going home? Well, I think you're right. Yes, very cold here now. Quite
right not to stop. See you again later."

Marion drove home and shut herself up in her room. There was no need to
lock the door. She was alone in the world, alone in her handsome, empty
house, where she had always been alone, even before her aunt died and
left it to her.... She would always be alone now. Only yesterday she had
hoped--what had she not hoped! She had seen him there in imagination
changing this weary house into a home, brilliant and faulty as ever,
lovable as ever, beloved as ever, surrounded by her lavished adoration.
She had seen their children running along its wide passages, playing in
its empty hall.

And now.

_He drank._

She shuddered. She had seen drink once. She knew. Never while she lived
would she forget what her home had been like. The past crowded back upon
her with all its vileness and nausea, all its unspeakable degradation
and violence, wrapped up with maudlin sentiment and cheap tears. The
sweat stood on her forehead.

What an escape she had had! To think that if it had not been for that
chance word of the manager's she would by now have pledged herself
irrevocably to a drunkard, waded back into the slough from which she had
emerged. Oh, what a merciful fate it had been, after all, which had
parted them! How faithless she had been all these years! How little she
had realised how the divine love and wisdom had watched over her, had
shielded her!

"Oh! thank God! Thank God!" she groaned. The other self in her, the poor
dying wom