t?" asked her husband, with rather a satirical
smile.

"Yes. I confess I could not leave off reading it. That is why it is so
dangerous. It is both powerful and evil."

Then the subject dropped. Mark was still smiling quietly, but
Catherine's face was grave. When she and her mother and Jenny went up
into the drawing-room, leaving the men to their cigarettes, Catherine
recurred to the subject of "William Foster's" book.

"Do you really think that a novel can do serious harm, mother?" she
began. "After all, it is only a work of the imagination. Surely people
read it and forget it, as they would not forget an actual fact."

Mrs. Ardagh sighed wearily. She was a pale woman with feverish eyes. The
expression in them grew almost fierce as she answered,

"It is the black imagination of this William Foster that will come like
a suffocating cloud upon the imaginations of others, especially of----"
She suddenly broke off. Catherine, wondering why, glanced up at her
mother and saw that she was looking towards the far end of the big
drawing-room. Jenny was sitting there, under a shaded lamp. She had some
work in her hands but her hands were still. Her head was turned away,
but her attitude, the curve of her soft, long, white throat, the
absolute immobility of her thin body betrayed the fact that she was
listening attentively.

"I would not let that child read William Foster's book for the world,"
Mrs. Ardagh whispered to Catherine.

Then she changed the subject, and spoke of some charity that she was
interested in at the East End of London. Jenny's hands instantly began
to move about her embroidery.

That night Catherine spoke to Mark of what her mother had said.

He only laughed.

"I cannot write for any one person, Kitty," he said, "or if I do it must
be----"

"For whom?" she asked quickly.

"Myself," he replied.

Catherine slept very badly that night. She was thinking of William
Foster and of Mark. They seemed to her two different men. And she had
married--which?

Mark did no work in London. He knew too many people, he said, and
besides, he wanted to rest. Catherine and he went out a great deal into
society. At Christmas they ran over to Paris and spent three weeks
there. During this holiday William Foster, it almost seemed, had ceased
to exist. Mark Sirrett was light-hearted, gay, and the kindest, most
thoughtful husband in the world. When they came back to London,
Catherine went at once to see her mother. Mr