on.

He alone knew that his tie with Mrs. Pargeter grew, if not more
passionate, then more absorbing and intimate as time went on, and he was
sometimes, even now, at considerable pains to put the busybodies of
their circle off the scent.

But indeed it would have required a very sharp, a very keen, human hound
to find the scent of what had been so singular and so innocent a tie.
Each had schooled the other to accept all that she would admit was
possible. True, Vanderlyn saw Margaret Pargeter almost every day, but
more often than not in the presence of acquaintances. She never came to
his rooms, and she had never seemed tempted to do any of the imprudent
things which many a woman, secure of her own virtue, will sometimes do
as if to prove the temper of her honour's blade.

So it was that Mrs. Pargeter had never fallen into the ranks of those
women who become the occasion for even good-natured gossip. The very way
in which they had, till to-night, conducted what she, the woman, was
pleased to call their friendship, made this which was now happening
seem, even now, to the man who was actually waiting for her to join him,
as unsubstantial, as likely to vanish, mirage-wise, as a dream.

And yet Vanderlyn passionately loved this woman whom most men would have
thought too cold to love, and who had known how to repress and tutor,
not only her own, but also his emotions. He loved her, too, so foolishly
and fondly that he had fashioned the whole of his life so that it should
be in harmony with hers, making sacrifices of which he had told her
nothing in order that he might surround her--an ill-mated, neglected
wife--with a wordless atmosphere of devotion which had become to her as
vital, as necessary, as is that of domestic peace and happiness to the
average woman. But for Laurence Vanderlyn and his "friendship," Mrs.
Pargeter's existence would have been lacking in all human savour, and
that from ironic circumstance rather than from any fault of her own.

* * * * *

Vanderlyn had spent the day in a fever of emotion and suspense, and he
had arrived at the Gare de Lyon a good hour before the time the train
for Orange was due to leave.

At first he had wandered about the great railway-station aimlessly,
avoiding the platform whence he knew he and his companion were to start.
Then, with relief, he had hailed the moment for securing coming privacy
in the unreserved railway carriage; this had not be