ormal leave-taking.

For perhaps a minute Toni stared at the two words "Leonard Dowson"; and
a chill, as of anticipatory dread, swept over her at the sight of that
firm, clerkly handwriting.

Until this moment she had looked upon Leonard's proposal as the one and
only means of setting Owen free. Once she had taken this step, had
burned her boats, her husband would surely accept his freedom with a
feeling of vast relief; and in spite of everything Toni had only one
thought--that of Owen's good.

But suddenly she was afraid, with a purely human, selfish fear for
herself. To what was she condemning herself by this unlawful flight?
When once Owen had accepted her sacrifice, had set in order the
machinery of the law which should give him his release, what would
become of her? Would she be obliged to marry a man for whom she felt
only a tepid friendship, unwarmed by the smallest coal from the fire of
love? She had found life sad even when married to the man she loved; but
what would it be to her as the wife of a man to whom she was almost
completely indifferent?

Quite unconsciously Toni was exaggerating Owen's attitude towards his
marriage, was accepting as his last word a few irritable sentences wrung
from him by fatigue and annoyance at having seen the corrected proofs
destroyed in a fit of childish temper on the part of his wife.

Far from regretting his marriage, Owen merely regretted Toni's
unreasonableness in the matter of Miss Loder; and once that young woman
was removed from the scene, Owen had no doubt that he and his wife would
shake down again quite comfortably and forget the recent scenes between
them.

But Toni, who always meant exactly what she said, and unconsciously
expected the same sincerity of speech from others, had taken Owen
literally; and although for a moment a flood of human weakness had
overtaken her as she gazed at Leonard Dowson's firm signature, she never
really faltered in her purpose.

When she had read the fatal letter once more, she went back into the
house, and there she burned the document with almost mechanical
forethought.

Then she went upstairs to her room and carefully packed her
dressing-bag. She did not take very much. Somehow it seemed unnecessary
to burden herself with many things; and when she had finished her
packing and had hidden the bag in her capacious wardrobe, she went
downstairs and sat by the drawing-room fire to wait until Kate saw fit
to bring tea.

When, a