"It is not that. It is the idea that is revolting--that this girl
should have been my mistress at any time--"

"But, great heaven! Harold, such a sin is a thing of the flesh, not of
the spirit, and the physical part of Sioned Penrhyn has enriched the
soil of Constantinople these sixty years. She has committed no sin in
her present embodiment."

"Sin is an impulse, a prompting, of the spirit," said Dartmouth.

Hollington threw one leg over the arm of the chair, half turning his
back upon Dartmouth.

"Rot!" he said.

"Not at all. Otherwise, the dead could sin."

"I am gratified to perceive that you are still able to have the last
word. All I can say is, that you have done what I thought no living
man could do. I once read a novel by a famous American author in which
one of the characters would not ask the heroine to marry him after her
husband's death because he had been guilty of the indelicacy of loving
her (although mutely, and by her unsuspected) while she was a married
woman. I thought then that moral senility could go no further, but you
have got ahead of the American. Allow me to congratulate you."

"You can jibe all you like. I may be a fool, but I can't help it.
I have got to that point where I am dominated by instinct, not by
reason. The instincts may be wrong, because the outgrowth of a false
civilization, but there they are, nevertheless, and of them I am the
product. So are you, and some day you will find it out. I do not say
positively that I will not marry Weir Penrhyn. I will talk it over
with her, and then we can decide."

"A charming subject to discuss with a young girl. It would be kinder,
and wiser, and more decent of you never to mention the matter to her.
Of what use to make the poor girl miserable?"

"She half suspects now, and it would come out sooner or later."

"Then for heaven's sake do it at once, and have it over. Don't stay
here by yourself any longer, whatever you do. Go to-morrow."

"Yes," said Dartmouth, "I will go to-morrow."

XIII.

When Dartmouth entered the drawing-room at Rhyd-Alwyn the next
evening, a half hour after his arrival, he found Sir Iltyd alone, and
received a warm greeting.

"My dear boy," the old gentleman exclaimed, "I am delighted to see
you. It seems an age since you left, and your brief reports of
your ill-health have worried me. As for poor Weir, she has been ill
herself. She looks so wretched that I would have sent for a physician
had she