e too happy together, I suppose."

He leaned suddenly forward and took both her hands in his. "How cold you
are!" he said, startled.

The words seemed to brace her like a sea-breeze.

"Hugh," she said, "I wish to tell you something. There is a 'but' in the
sentence of my life."

He drew her closer to him, with a strange impulse to be nearer the soul
that was about to prove itself as noble as he desired. But that very act
prevented the fulfilment of his wish. The touch of his hands, the
eagerness of his eyes, gave the victory to her heart. She shut the lips
that were speaking, and he kissed them. Kisses act as an opiate on a
woman's conscience. Only when Eve felt his lips on hers did she know her
own weakness. Sir Hugh having kissed her, waited for the telling of the
secret. At that moment he might as well have sat down and waited for the
millennium.

"What is it?" he said at last.

"Nothing," she answered, "nothing." She spoke the word with a hard
intonation.

Hugh held her close in his arms, with a sort of strange idea that to do
so would crush his disappointment. She was proving her love by her
silence. Why, then, did he wish that she should speak? At last she said,
in a low voice:--

"There is one thing you ought to know. If I marry you, I marry you a
beggar. I shall lose my fortune. I am not obliged to lose it, but I mean
to give it up. Don't ask me why."

He had no need to. He waited, but she was silent. So that was all. He
kissed her again, loosened his arms from about her and stood up.

"I have enough for both," he said.

He did not look at her, and she could not look at him.

"Are you going?" she said.

"Yes; but I will call this evening."

He was at the door, and had half-opened it when he turned back, moved by
a passionate impulse.

"Eve!" he cried, and his eyes seemed asking her for something.

"Yes?" she said, looking away.

There was a silence. Then he said "Good-bye!" The door closed upon him.

Mrs Glinn stood for a moment where he had left her. In her mind she was
counting the seconds that must elapse before he could reach the street.
If she could be untrue to herself till then, she could be untrue to
herself for ever. Would he walk down the stairs slowly or fast? She
wanted to be a false woman so much, so very much, that she clenched her
hands together. The action seemed as if it might help her to keep on
doing wrong. But suddenly she unclasped her hands, darted across the
room to