lip.

"_You_ would wish it?" in wounded tones.

"I would hate the thought of it!--yet, something must be done. She might
find it more profitable to return to you and leave Mr. Meredith in
peace."

A painful silence.

"Honey, if she lived with me I should surely murder her! Do you know how
I detest the woman? Do you imagine I could take her back as a wife? I
would rather be shot."

Honor buried her face in her hands. In her heart of hearts she was
singing a paean of thanksgiving that he was still hers--only hers, though
divided from her by an impassable gulf!

"You could bear to see me reconciled to her?"

No answer.

"Honey," he cried desperately. "I would do anything in the world for
you!"

"But you cannot sacrifice yourself for a good woman's happiness?" she
questioned, hardly knowing what she said.

"Why should I for Mrs. Meredith?"

"Because you once owed her a debt--she was very good to you after----"

"My God!--yes!"

"This will kill her. She will hear--there are so many who will be ready
to give her chapter and verse of the scandal against her husband. But if
this--nurse--were with you, it would, perhaps, all blow over."

"Is it really your wish that I should do this thing? Remember, she is
hateful to me--and she can never, in any sense, be my wife again!"

"I am--glad!" she could not help exclaiming. "Then the sacrifice will
not be so terrible, after all!"

"Perhaps not," he answered, his eyes full on hers with a passion of
longing. "Will you let me think it over?"

"Decide quickly!" she begged him.

"There is nothing I would not do for you," he repeated.

Honor rose with her gracious smile of gratitude and trust, and they
parted without touching hands. When she returned home, the reaction from
the strain of their meeting prostrated her for hours. Her parents feared
that the climate of Muktiarbad was, at last, telling on her healthy
constitution as it had told on Ray Meredith's.

"Perhaps we shall have to send you home!" her mother sighed anxiously.

"Not a bit of it!" Honor asserted. "The cold weather will put me to
rights very soon."

"Perhaps you have something on your mind, darling?"

"I have. I am worrying badly for Joyce Meredith."

"Joyce will get nothing more than she deserves. Why should you suffer?
It is nobody's business to meddle between husband and wife."

"Somebody is already meddling, so it may need counter-meddling to put it
right."

"I shouldn't bother my head.