f to drive me out of this house!'

'All I wish,' said Mabel, 'is to prevent you as far as I can from ever
tormenting Dolly again--I am determined to do that!'

'You know as well as I do that you will do much more than that. Mrs.
Featherstone does not love me as it is: your conduct will give her the
excuse she wants to get rid of me!'

'I can't help it,' she said firmly. 'And if Gilda is brought to see,
before it is too late, what things you are capable of, it would be the
best thing that could happen for her.'

'It would be more straightforward, wouldn't it, if you told her at
once?' he suggested with a slight sneer: 'it comes to very much the
same thing in the end.'

Mabel had had some searchings of conscience on this very point. Ought
she, she had asked herself, knowing what she knew of Caffyn's past, to
stand by while a girl whom she liked as she did Gilda deceived herself
so grossly? But of late a coldness had sprung up between Gilda and
herself which made it unlikely that any interference would be taken in
good part; and besides, there was something invidious in such a
course, to which she could not bring herself without feeling more
certain than she did that it was necessary and would be of any avail.

'If I was sure I should do the least good, I should certainly tell
her,' Mabel replied; 'but I hope now that it will not be necessary.'

He bit his lips. 'You are exceedingly amiable, I must say,' he
observed; 'but really now, why all this bitterness? What makes you so
anxious to see an obscure individual like myself jilted--and ruined?'

'Am I bitter?' said Mabel. 'I don't think so. You ought to know that I
do not wish for your ruin, but I can't help wishing that this marriage
should be broken off.'

'Ah!' he said softly, 'and may I ask why?'

'Why!' cried Mabel. 'Can you ask? Because you are utterly unworthy of
any nice and good girl--you will make your wife a very miserable
woman, Harold--and you are marrying Gilda for money and position, not
love--you don't know what love means, that is why!'

Even in the half-light which came from the shaded lamps in the room
within she looked very lovely in her indignation, and he hated her the
more for it--it was maddening to feel that he was absolutely
despicable and repulsive in the eyes of this woman, to whose fairness
even hatred itself could not blind him.

'You are unjust,' he said, bending towards her. 'You forget--I loved
_you_! I expected that,' he adde