longer."

"I will not reproach you any more," he said, quietly. "I beg your
pardon. The past is irrevocable, but the present is here. The man who
loved you, the father of your child, is alone, ill, poor, in danger of
moral ruin, because of what you have done. I ask you to go to his aid.
But first let me tell you exactly what I have just heard from England."
He repeated the greater part of French's letter, so far as it concerned
Roger.

"He has his mother," said Daphne, when he paused, speaking with evident
physical difficulty.

"Lady Barnes I hear had a paralytic stroke two months ago. She is
incapable of giving advice or help."

"Of course, I am sorry. But Herbert French----"

"No one but a wife could save him--no one!" he repeated with emphasis.

"I am _not_ his wife!" she insisted faintly. "I released myself by
American law. He is nothing to me." As she spoke she leant back against
the seat and closed her eyes. Boyson saw clearly that excitement and
anger had struck down her nervous power, that she might faint or go into
hysterics. Yet a man of remarkable courtesy and pitifulness towards
women was not thereby moved from his purpose. He had his chance; he
could not relinquish it. Only there was something now in her attitude
which recalled the young Daphne of years ago; which touched his heart.

He sat down beside her.

"Bear with me, Mrs. Barnes, for a few moments, while I put it as it
appears to another mind. You became first jealous of Roger, for very
small reason, then tired of him. Your marriage no longer satisfied
you--you resolved to be quit of it; so you appealed to laws of which, as
a nation, we are ashamed, which all that is best among us will, before
long, rebel against and change. Our State system permits them--America
suffers. In this case--forgive me if I put it once more as it appears to
me--they have been used to strike at an Englishman who had absolutely no
defence, no redress. And now you are free; he remains bound--so long, at
least, as you form no other tie. Again I ask you, have you ever let
yourself face what it means to a man of thirty to be cut off from lawful
marriage and legitimate children? Mrs. Barnes! you know what a man is,
his strength and his weakness. Are you really willing that Roger should
sink into degradation in order that you may punish him for some offence
to your pride or your feeling? It may be too late! He may, as French
fears, have fallen into some fatal entanglement