ossip."

"What gossip?"--in cold surprise.

"There's a desk full of Hamil's letters upstairs, judging from the
writing on the envelopes." He added with a smile: "Although I don't
pry, some servants do. And if there is anything in those letters you do
not care to have discussed below stairs, you ought either to lock them
up or destroy them."

Her face was burning hot; but she met his gaze with equanimity, slowly
nodding serene assent to his suggestion.

"Shiela," he said pleasantly, "it looks to me as though what you have
done for your family in that hour of need rather balances all accounts
between you and them."

"What?"

"I say that you are square with them for what they have done in the past
for you."

She shook her head. "I don't know what you mean, Louis."

He said patiently: "You had nothing to give but your fortune, and you
gave it."

"Yes."

"Which settles your obligations toward them--puts them so deeply for
ever in your debt that--" He hesitated, considering the chances, then,
seriously persuasive:

"They are now in _your_ debt, Shiela. They have sufficient proof of your
unselfish affection for them to stand a temporary little shock. Why
don't you administer it?"

"What shock?"--in an altered voice.

"Your divorce."

"I thought you were meaning that."

"I do mean it. You ought to have your freedom; you are ruining your own
life and Hamil's, and--and--"

"Yours?"

"Let that go," he said almost savagely; "I can always get along. But I
want you to have your freedom to marry that damned fool, Hamil."

The quick blood stung her face under his sudden blunt brutality.

"You think that because I returned a little money to my family, it
entitles me to publicly disgrace them?"

Malcourt's patience was fast going.

"Oh, for Heaven's sake, Shiela, shed your swaddling clothes and act like
something adult. Is there any reason why two people situated as we are
cannot discuss sensibly some method of mitigating our misfortune? I'll
do anything you say in the matter. Divorce is a good thing sometimes.
This is one of the times, and I'll give you every reason for a
successful suit against me--"

She rose, cheeks aflame, and in her eyes scorn ungovernable.

He rose too, exasperated.

"You won't consider it?" he asked harshly.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm not coward enough to ask others to bear the consequences of
my own folly and yours!"

"You little fool," he said, "do you think your f