name in Paris. Within a month you shall hear of it beyond the gates of
Paris. Within a year you shall hear nothing else in Europe!"

"As I hear nothing else here now, Monsieur?"

Like a horse restless under the snaffle, the man shook his head, but
went on. "If you should be offered wealth more than any woman of Paris,
if you had precedence over the proudest peers of France--would these
things have no weight with you?"

"You know they would not."

Law cast himself restlessly upon a seat across the room from her. "I
think I do," said he, dejectedly. "At times you drive me to my wit's
end. What then, Madam, would avail?"

"Why, nothing, so far as the past is to be reviewed for you and me. Yet,
I should say that, if there were two here speaking as you and I, and if
they two had no such past as we--then I could fancy that woman saying to
her friend, 'Have you indeed done all that lay within you to do?'"

"Is it not enough--?"

"There is nothing, sir, that is enough for a woman, but all!"

"I have given you all."

"All that you have left--after yourself."

"Sharp, sharp indeed are your words, my Lady. And they are most sharp
because they come with justice."

"Oh," broke out the woman, "one may use sharp words who has been scorned
for her own false friend! You would give me all, Mr. Law, but you must
remember that it is only what remains after that--that--"

"But would you, could you, have cared had there been no 'that'? Had I
done all that lay in me to do, could you then have given me your
confidence, and could you have thought me worthy of it?"

"Oh, 'if!'"

"Yes, 'if!' 'If,' and 'as though,' and 'in that case'--these are all we
have to console us in this life. But, sweet one--"

"Sir, such words I have forbidden," said Lady Catharine, the blood for
one cause or another mounting again into her cheek.

"You torture me!" broke out Law.

"As much as you have me? Is it so much as that, Mr. Law?"

He rose and stood apart, his head falling in despair. "As I have done
this thing, so may God punish me!" said he. "I was not fit, and am not.
Yet I was bold enough to hope that there could be some atonement, some
thing--if my suffering--"

"There are things, Mr. Law, for which no suffering atones. But why cause
suffering longer for us both? You come again and again. Could you not
leave me for a time untroubled?"

"How can I?" blazed the man, his forehead furrowed up into a frown, the
moist beads on his brow prov