was very much in love.
So you see," he went on, smiling, "that it was better that he died,
believing in her and in her love for him. Mr. Phillips, now, would
have let him live to return and find her married; but Nature is kinder
than writers of fiction, and quite as dramatic."

Phillips did not reply to this, and the general only shook his head
doubtfully and said nothing. So Mrs. Trevelyan looked at Lady
Arbuthnot, and the ladies rose and left the room. When the men had
left them, a young girl went to the piano, and the other women seated
themselves to listen; but Miss Egerton, saying that it was warm,
stepped out through one of the high windows on to the little balcony
that overhung the garden. It was dark out there and cool, and the
rumbling of the encircling city sounded as distant and as far off as
the reflection seemed that its million lights threw up to the sky
above. The girl leaned her face and bare shoulder against the rough
stone wall of the house, and pressed her hands together, with her
fingers locking and unlocking and her rings cutting through her
gloves. She was trembling slightly, and the blood in her veins was hot
and tingling. She heard the voices of the men as they entered the
drawing-room, the momentary cessation of the music at the piano, and
its renewal, and then a figure blocked the light from the window, and
Gordon stepped out of it and stood in front of her with the chain and
locket in his hand. He held it towards her, and they faced each other
for a moment in silence.

"Will you take it now?" he said.

The girl raised her head, and drew herself up until she stood straight
and tall before him. "Have you not punished me enough?" she asked, in
a whisper. "Are you not satisfied? Was it brave? Was it manly? Is that
what you have learned among your savages--to torture a woman?" She
stopped with a quick sob of pain, and pressed her hands against her
breast.

Gordon observed her, curiously, with cold consideration. "What of the
sufferings of the man to whom you gave this?" he asked. "Why not
consider him? What was your bad quarter of an hour at the table, with
your friends around you, to the year he suffered danger and physical
pain for you--for you, remember?"

The girl hid her face for a moment in her hands, and when she lowered
them again her cheeks were wet and her voice was changed and softer.
"They told me he was dead," she said. "Then it was denied, and then
the French papers told of it