atience? No reason for pity?" said the man's voice,
betraying emotion at last. "Mrs. Barnes, what do you know of Roger's
present state?"

"I have no need to know anything."

"It matters nothing to you? Nothing to you that he has lost health, and
character, and happiness, his child, his home, everything, owing to your
action?"

"Captain Boyson!" she cried, her composure giving way, "this is
intolerable, outrageous! It is humiliating that you should even expect
me to argue with you. Yet," she bit her lip, angry with the agitation
that would assail her, "for the sake of our friendship to which you
appeal, I would rather not be angry. What you say is monstrous!" her
voice shook. "In the first place, I freed myself from a man who married
me for money."

"One moment! Do you forget that from the day you left him Roger has
never touched a farthing of your money? That he returned everything to
you?"

"I had nothing to do with that; it was his own folly."

"Yes, but it throws light upon his character. Would a mere
fortune-hunter have done it? No, Mrs. Barnes!--that view of Roger does
not really convince you, you do not really believe it."

She smiled bitterly.

"As it happens, in his letters to me after I left him, he amply
confessed it."

"Because his wish was to make peace, to throw himself at your feet. He
accused himself, more than was just. But you do not really think him
mercenary and greedy, you _know_ that he was neither! Mrs. Barnes, Roger
is ill and lonely."

"His mode of life accounts for it."

"You mean that he has begun to drink, has fallen into bad company. That
may be true. I cannot deny it. But consider. A man from whom everything
is torn at one blow; a man of not very strong character, not accustomed
to endure hardness.--Does it never occur to you that you took a
frightful responsibility?"

"I protected myself--and my child."

He breathed deep.

"Or rather--did you murder a life--that God had given you in trust?"

He paused, and she paused also, as though held by the power of his will.
They were passing along the public garden that borders the road; scents
of lilac and fresh leaf floated over the damp grass; the moonlight was
growing in strength, and the majesty of the gorge, the roar of the
leaping water all seemed to enter into the moral and human scene, to
accent and deepen it.

Daphne suddenly clung to a seat beside the path, dropped into it.

"Captain Boyson! I--I cannot bear this any