bantering
phrase had then been a caress. But now the words returned with a
sinister meaning. She knew they were true as far as Amherst was
concerned: in the arts of casuistry and equivocation a child could have
outmatched him, and she had only to exert her will to dupe him as deeply
as she pleased. Well! the task was odious, but it was needful: it was
the bitterest part of her expiation that she must deceive him once more
to save him from the results of her former deception. This decision once
reached, every nerve in her became alert for an opportunity to do the
thing and have it over; so that, whenever they were alone together, she
was in an attitude of perpetual tension, her whole mind drawn up for its
final spring.

The decisive word came, one evening toward the end of May, in the form
of an allusion on Amherst's part to Cicely's approaching visit. Husband
and wife were seated in the drawing-room after dinner, he with a book in
hand, she bending, as usual, over the needlework which served at once as
a pretext for lowered eyes, and as a means of disguising her fixed
preoccupation.

"Have you worked out a plan?" he asked, laying down his book. "It
occurred to me that it would be rather a good idea if we began with a
sort of festivity for the kids at the day nursery. You could take Cicely
there early, and I could bring out Mr. Langhope after luncheon. The
whole performance would probably tire him too much."

Justine listened with suspended thread. "Yes--that seems a good plan."

"Will you see about the details, then? You know it's only a week off."

"Yes, I know." She hesitated, and then took the spring. "I ought to
tell you John--that I--I think I may not be here...."

He raised his head abruptly, and she saw the blood mount under his fair
skin. "Not be here?" he exclaimed.

She met his look as steadily as she could. "I think of going away for
awhile."

"Going away? Where? What is the matter--are you not well?"

There was her pretext--he had found it for her! Why should she not
simply plead ill-health? Afterward she would find a way of elaborating
the details and making them plausible. But suddenly, as she was about to
speak, there came to her the feeling which, up to one fatal moment in
their lives, had always ruled their intercourse--the feeling that there
must be truth, and absolute truth, between them. Absolute, indeed, it
could never be again, since he must never know of the condition exacted
by Mr. Lan