ent of life and had visited
hospitals enough to understand that mental causes were generally
responsible for such breakdowns--Hilary had had a shock. She remembered
how in her childhood he had been the object of her particular animosity;
how she used to put out her tongue at him, and imitate his manner, and
how he had never made the slightest attempt to conciliate her; most
people of this sort are sensitive to the instincts of children; but
Hilary had not been. She remembered--how long ago it seemed now!--the day
she had given him, in deviltry, the clipping about Austen shooting Mr.
Blodgett.

The Hilary Vane who sat beside her to-day was not the same man. It was
unaccountable, but he was not. Nor could this changed estimate of him be
attributed to her regard for Austen, for she recalled a day only a few
months since--in June--when he had come up to Fairview and she was
standing on the lawn, and she had looked at him without recognition; she
had not, then, been able to bring herself to bow to him; to her childhood
distaste had been added the deeper resentment of Austen's wrongs. Her
early instincts about Hilary had been vindicated, for he had treated his
son abominably and driven Austen from his mother's home. To misunderstand
and maltreat Austen Vane, of all people Austen, whose consideration for
his father had been what it had! Could it be that Hilary felt remorse?
Could it be that he loved Austen in some peculiar manner all his own?

Victoria knew now--so strangely--that the man beside her was capable of
love, and she had never felt that way about Hilary Vane. And her mind was
confused, and her heart was troubled and wrung. Insight flashed upon her
of the terrible loneliness of a life surrounded by outstretched, loving
arms to which one could not fly; scenes from a famous classic she had
read with a favourite teacher at school came to her, and she knew that
she was the witness of a retribution, of a suffering beyond conception of
a soul prepared for suffering,--not physical suffering, but of that
torture which is the meaning of hell.

However, there was physical suffering. It came and went, and at such
moments she saw the traces of it in the tightening of his lips, and
longed with womanly intuition to alleviate it. She had not spoken
--although she could have cried aloud; she knew not what to say. And then
suddenly she reached out and touched his hand. Nor could she have
accounted for the action.

"Are you in muc