quickly as it had come.

The new consideration which at present occupied her mind was whether she
could have the courage to leave Swithin to himself, as in the original
plan, and singly meet her impending trial, despising the shame, till he
should return at five-and-twenty and claim her? Yet was this assumption
of his return so very safe? How altered things would be at that time! At
twenty-five he would still be young and handsome; she would be three-and-
thirty, fading to middle-age and homeliness, from a junior's point of
view. A fear sharp as a frost settled down upon her, that in any such
scheme as this she would be building upon the sand.

She hardly knew how she reached home that night. Entering by the lawn
door she saw a red coal in the direction of the arbour. Louis was
smoking there, and he came forward.

He had not seen her since the morning and was naturally anxious about
her. She blessed the chance which enveloped her in night and lessened
the weight of the encounter one half by depriving him of vision.

'Did you accomplish your object?' he asked.

'No,' said she.

'How was that?'

'He has sailed.'

'A very good thing for both, I say. I believe you would have married
him, if you could have overtaken him.'

'That would I!' she said.

'Good God!'

'I would marry a tinker for that matter; I have reasons for being any
man's wife,' she said recklessly, 'only I should prefer to drown myself.'

Louis held his breath, and stood rigid at the meaning her words conveyed.

'But Louis, you don't know all!' cried Viviette. 'I am not so bad as you
think; mine has been folly--not vice. I thought I had married him--and
then I found I had not; the marriage was invalid--Sir Blount was alive!
And now Swithin has gone away, and will not come back for my calling! How
can he? His fortune is left him on condition that he forms no legal tie.
O will he--will he, come again?'

'Never, if that's the position of affairs,' said Louis firmly, after a
pause.

'What then shall I do?' said Viviette.

Louis escaped the formidable difficulty of replying by pretending to
continue his Havannah; and she, bowed down to dust by what she had
revealed, crept from him into the house. Louis's cigar went out in his
hand as he stood looking intently at the ground.

XXXIX

Louis got up the next morning with an idea in his head. He had dressed
for a journey, and breakfasted hastily.

Before he had started Vivie