with her hard, fastidious face, her
formidable elegance and self-possession. How she had loathed the
marriage! And with what a harpy-like eagerness had she seized on the
first signs of Madeleine's discontent and _ennui_; persuaded her to come
home; prepared the divorce; poisoned public opinion. It was from a last
interview with Mrs. Fanshaw that Leopold Verrier had gone straight to
his death. What was it that she had said to him?

Daphne lingered on the question; haunted, too, by other stray
recollections of the dismal story--the doctor driving by in the early
morning who had seen the fall; the discovery of the poor broken body;
Madeleine's blanched stoicism, under the fierce coercion of her mother;
and that strong, silent, slow-setting tide of public condemnation, which
in this instance, at least, had avenged a cruel act.

But at this point Daphne ceased to think about her friend. She found
herself suddenly engaged in a heated self-defence. What comparison could
there be between her case and Madeleine's?

Fiercely she found herself going through the list of Roger's crimes; his
idleness, treachery and deceit; his lack of any high ideals; his bad
influence on the child; his luxurious self-indulgent habits, the lies he
had told, the insults he had offered her. By now the story had grown to
a lurid whole in her imagination, based on a few distorted facts, yet
radically and monstrously untrue. Generally, however, when she dwelt
upon it, it had power to soothe any smart of conscience, to harden any
yearning of the heart, supposing she felt any. And by now she had almost
ceased to feel any.

But to-night she was mysteriously shaken and agitated. As she clung to
the wall, which alone separated her from the echoing gulf beyond, she
could not prevent herself from thinking of Roger, Roger as he was when
Alfred Boyson introduced him to her, when they first married, and she
had been blissfully happy; happy in the possession of such a god-like
creature, in the envy of other women, in the belief that he was growing
more and more truly attached to her.

Her thoughts broke abruptly. "He married me for money!" cried the inward
voice. Then she felt her cheeks tingling as she remembered her
conversation with Madeleine on that very subject--how she had justified
what she was now judging--how plainly she had understood and condoned
it.

"That was my inexperience! Besides, I knew nothing then of Chloe
Fairmile. If I had--I should nev