name. If you will not care for your family honour, then I
shall try to do so. If you will not do your duty, then I will try to
do it for you." She looked him determinedly in the eyes. "Through you I
have lost nearly all I cared to keep in the world. I should like to feel
that in this one thing you acted honourably."

He sprang to his feet, bursting with anger, in spite of the inward
admonition that much that he prized was in danger, that any breach
with Hylda would be disastrous. But self-will and his native arrogance
overruled the monitor within, and he said: "Don't preach to me, don't
play the martyr. You will do this and you will do that! You will save my
honour and the family name! You will relieve Claridge Pasha, you will do
what Governments choose not to do; you will do what your husband chooses
not to do--Well, I say that you will do what your husband chooses to do,
or take the consequences."

"I think I will take the consequences," she answered. "I will save
Claridge Pasha, if it is possible. It is no boast. I will do it, if it
can be done at all, if it is God's will that it should be done; and in
doing it I shall be conscious that you and I will do nothing together
again--never! But that will not stop me; it will make me do it, the last
right thing, before the end."

She was so quiet, so curiously quiet. Her words had a strange solemnity,
a tragic apathy. What did it mean? He had gone too far, as he had done
before. He had blundered viciously, as he had blundered before.

She spoke again before he could collect his thoughts and make reply.

"I did not ask for too much, I think, and I could have forgiven and
forgotten all the hurts you have given me, if it were not for one thing.
You have been unjust, hard, selfish, and suspicious. Suspicious--of me!
No one else in all the world ever thought of me what you have thought.
I have done all I could. I have honourably kept the faith. But you have
spoiled it all. I have no memory that I care to keep. It is stained.
My eyes can never bear to look upon the past again, the past with
you--never."

She turned to leave the room. He caught her arm. "You will wait till you
hear what I have to say," he cried in anger. Her last words had stung
him so, her manner was so pitilessly scornful. It was as though she
looked down on him from a height. His old arrogance fought for mastery
over his apprehension. What did she know? What did she mean? In any
case he must face it out,