amily would let you
endure me for one second if they knew how you felt? Or what I am likely
to do at any moment?"

She stood, without replying, plainly waiting for him to leave the room
and her apartments. All her colour had fled.

"You know," he said, with an ugly glimmer in his eyes, "I need not
continue this appeal to your common sense, if you haven't got any; I
can force you to a choice."

"What choice?"--in leisurely contempt.

He hesitated; then, insolently: "Your choice between--honest wifehood
and honest divorce."

For a moment she could not comprehend: suddenly her hands contracted and
clinched as the crimson wave stained her from throat to brow. But in her
eyes was terror unutterable.

"I--I beg--your pardon," he stammered. "I did not mean to frighten
you--"

But at his first word she clapped both hands over her ears, staring at
him in horror--backing away from him, shrinking flat against the wall.

"Confound it! I am not threatening you," he said, raising his voice; but
she would not hear another word--he saw that now--and, with a shrug, he
walked past her, patient once more, outwardly polite, inwardly bitterly
amused, as he heard the key snap in the door behind him.

Standing in his own office on the floor below, he glanced vacantly
around him. After a moment he said aloud, as though to somebody in the
room: "Well, I tried it. But that is not the way."

Later, young Mrs. Malcourt, passing, saw him seated at his desk, head
bent as though listening to something interesting. But there was nobody
else in the office.

When at last he roused himself the afternoon sun was shining level in
the west; long rosy beams struck through the woods turning the silver
stems of the birches pink.

On the footbridge spanning the meadow brook he saw his wife and Hamil
leaning over the hand-rail, shoulder almost touching shoulder; and he
went to the window and stood intently observing them.

They seemed to be conversing very earnestly; once she threw back her
pretty head and laughed unrestrainedly, and the clear sound of it
floated up to him through the late sunshine; and once she shook her head
emphatically, and once he saw her lay her hand on Hamil's arm--an
impulsive gesture, as though to enforce her words, but it was more like
a caress.

A tinge of malice altered Malcourt's smile as he watched them; the
stiffening grin twitched at his cheeks.

"Now I wonder," he thought to himself, "whether it is the right