served her purpose in any way, she would
willingly have let him know that she counted it possible for him to
desert her. But the fear that it might create a suggestion to his
consciousness which hitherto had not existed, locked the words in
her lips. She would not have uttered them for a crown of wealth.

"Why?" he repeated. "Eh?"

"I'd rather you didn't," she said, with trouble in voice. "I'd rather
you didn't--that's all."

"Well--I'm afraid it's got to be," he replied finally. "In my mind
it's not fair to you, and I'm determined that where you're concerned,
I shall have nothing with which to reproach myself. I shall draw it
up this evening when we go back."

She looked pitiably about her. Now it seemed that the little Dutch
clock, which had been ticking so merrily, so much in unison with life,
all went out of time. It seemed a farce then, that little Dutch clock.
All the romance went out of it--it was only a trade--a trade machine
for the making of money, no longer the counting of happy hours.
Everything seemed a trade then--everything seemed a trade.

CHAPTER VI

That evening the settlement was drawn up. When he had finished it,
Traill held it out to her.

"You'd better just read it through," he said; "the substance of it
is there. To legalize, merely means to write the same thing at greater
length and in less comprehensive English."

"I don't want to read it," she replied.

"But why?"

"It doesn't interest me. You've written it to please yourself, not
to please me. Please don't ask me to read it!"

He was unable to follow the reasoning of this, and he shrugged his
shoulders with a sense of irritation. "As you wish," he said quietly
and put the paper away in a drawer of his bureau. "I'll give you a
copy of this, at any rate."

Before they had gone abroad, Traill had taken a lease of the floor
above his chambers, which contained rooms similar in shape and size
to those in which he lived. These, he had decorated and furnished
according to the slightest wish that he could induce Sally to express.
In the room which she used as a sitting-room, he had given her a piano
with permission to play on it whenever he was not in the rooms below.
Most of the daytime, then, she was at liberty to make what noise she
liked and, at all times, free to have any friends she wished to see,
on the strict understanding that he was not to be bothered by them.

There was only one friend. Janet came to see her on ever