too, with so deep a pang, that before he recovered it was too
late.

"Geraldine!"

"Oh! why is it?"--(it was a woman's voice that asked the question,
though not the voice that Mr. Fogo had half expected to hear, and his
very relief brought a shudder with it)--"oh! why is it that a man and
a woman cannot talk together except in lies? You ask if I am
unhappy. Say what you mean. Do I hate my husband? Well, then--yes!"

"My dear Mrs.--"

"Is that frank enough? Oh! yes, I have lied so consistently
throughout my married life that I tell the truth now out of pure
weariness. I detest him: sometimes I feel that I must kill either
Fred or myself, and end it all."

"Bless my soul!" murmured Mr. Fogo, cowering more closely.
"This country teems with extraordinary people!"

He held his breath as the deeper voice answered--

"Had I thought--"

"Stop! I know what you would say, and it is untrue. Be frank as I
am. You had half-guessed my secret, and were bound to convince
yourself: and why? Shall I tell you, or will you copy my candour and
speak for yourself?"

Dead silence followed this question. After some seconds the woman's
voice resumed--

"Ah! all men are cowards. Well, I will tell you. Your question
implied yet another, and it was, Do I, hating my husband, love you?"

"Geraldine!"

"Do you still wish that question answered? I will do you that favour
also: Listen: for the life of me--I don't know."

And the speaker laughed--a laugh full of amused tolerance, as though
her confession had left her a careless spectator of its results.
Mr. Fogo shuddered.

"In heaven's name, Geraldine, don't mock me!"

"But it is true. How _should_ I know? You have talked to me, read me
your verses--and, indeed, I think them very beautiful. You have with
comparative propriety, because in verse, invited me to fly with thee
to a desolate isle in the Southern Sea--wherever that is--and
forgetting my shame and likewise blame, while you do the same with
name and fame and its laurel-leaf, go to moral grief on a coral
reef--"

"Geraldine, you are torturing me."

"Do I not quote correctly? My point is this:--A woman will listen to
talk, but she admires action. Prove that you are ready, not to fly
to a coral reef, but to do me one small service, and you may have
another answer."

"Name it."

Mr. Fogo, peering through the bushes as one fascinated, saw an
extremely beautiful woman confronting an extremely pale youth,