have occupied my place. I must have been blind too. I did not
see, that his nature shrinks from the thing it calls up. He dreads the
exposure he courts--or has to combat with all his powers. It has been
a revelation to me of him life as well. Nothing stops him. Now it is
Parliament--a vacant London Borough. He counts on a death: Ah! terrible!
I have it like a snake's bite night and day.'

Nataly concluded: 'There: it has done me some good to speak. I feel so
base.' She breathed heavily.

Dartrey took her hand and bent his lips to it. 'Happy the woman who has
not more to speak! How long will Nesta stay here?'

'You will watch over her, Dartrey? She stays-her father wishes--up
to--ah! We can hardly be in such extreme peril. He has her doctor, her
lawyer, and her butler--a favourite servant--to check, and influence,
her: She--you know who it is!--does not, I am now convinced, mean
persecution. She was never a mean-minded woman. Oh! I could wish she
were. They say she is going. Then I am to be made an "honest woman
of." Victor wants Nesta, now that she is away, to stay until... You
understand. He feels she is safe from any possible kind of harm with
those good ladies. And I feel she is the safer for having you near.
Otherwise, how I should pray to have you with us! Daily I have to
pass through, well, something like the ordeal of the red-hot
ploughshares--and without the innocence, dear friend! But it's best that
my girl should not have to be doing the same; though she would have the
innocence. But she writhes under any shadow of a blot. And for her
to learn the things that are in the world, through her mother's
history!--and led to know it by the falling away of friends, or say,
acquaintances! However ignorant at present, she learns from a mere
nothing. I dread!.... In a moment, she is a blaze of light. There have
been occurrences. Only Victor could have overcome them! I had to think
it better for my girl, that she was absent. We are in such a whirl up
there! So I work round again to "how long?" and the picture of myself
counting the breaths of a dying woman. The other day I was told I was
envied!'

'Battle, battle, battle; for all of us, in every position!' said Dartrey
sharply, to clip a softness: 'except when one's attending on an invalid
uncle. Then it's peace; rather like extinction. And I can't be crying
for the end either. I bite my moustache and tap foot on the floor, out
of his hearing; make believe I'm patien