rt
in this crisis.

The effect on him had been different from what Hylda had anticipated.
She had pictured him stricken and dumfounded by the blow. It had never
occurred to her, it did not now, that he had known the truth; for, of
course, to know the truth was to speak, to restore to David his own,
to step down into the second and unconsidered place. After all, to her
mind, there was no disgrace. The late Earl had married secretly, but he
had been duly married, and he did not marry again until Mercy Claridge
was dead. The only wrong was to David, whose grandfather had been even
more to blame than his own father. She had looked to help Eglington in
this moment, and now there seemed nothing for her to do. He was superior
to the situation, though it was apparent in his pale face and rigid
manner that he had been struck hard.

She came near to him, but there was no encouragement to her to play
that part which is a woman's deepest right and joy and pain in one--to
comfort her man in trouble, sorrow, or evil. Always, always, he stood
alone, whatever the moment might be, leaving her nothing to do--"playing
his own game with his own weapons," as he had once put it. Yet there was
strength in it too, and this came to her mind now, as though in excuse
for whatever else there was in the situation which, against her will,
repelled her.

"I am so sorry for you," she said at last.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"To lose all that has been yours so long."

This was their great moment. The response to this must be the touchstone
of their lives. A--half dozen words might alter all the future, might
be the watch word to the end of all things. Involuntarily her heart
fashioned the response he ought to give--"I shall have you left, Hylda."

The air seemed to grow oppressive, and the instant's silence a torture,
and, when he spoke, his words struck a chill to her heart--rough notes
of pain. "I have not lost yet," were his words.

She shrank. "You will not hide it. You will do right by--by him," she
said with difficulty.

"Let him establish his claim to the last item of fact," he said with
savage hate.

"Luke Claridge knew. The proofs are but just across the way, no doubt,"
she answered, almost coldly, so had his words congealed her heart.

Their great moment had passed. It was as though a cord had snapped that
held her to him, and in the recoil she had been thrown far off from him.
Swift as his mind worked, it had not seen his