deigned no reply; but shook his head so fiercely that she
forebore to trouble him.

Every day that he saw Lily she learned his nature by the contrast
Barclay offered; she also learned to doubt herself. She never had been
worthy of Osgood; it was fit that she should marry Barclay. She
doubted whether she could keep up the strain, which she knew Osgood's
love would impose upon her, of self-abnegation, self-denial,
isolation, and independence. She was not sure that she did not prefer
enervation with Barclay to action with Osgood. Barclay watched them
both. Jealousy gnawed his soul, not because he doubted Osgood, but
because he had a suspicion that Lily once felt an interest in Osgood,
which might be on the point of awakening. He tried experiments upon
her feelings, pinched them, tore them up by the roots, extracted them
with wrenches of his will, applied slow fire; but he learned nothing.
His motive was so palpable to Osgood that he more than once felt on
the point of knocking him down, and had he seen any encouraging sign
from Lily he would have done it. He sometimes sighed over Barclay's
failure, hateful as his conduct was.

Through the torture which Barclay applied to her she saw the passion
which tortured him. Could a woman have been quailed into love she
would have been at his feet; for he broke loose from his feigned
submission and savagely demanded an equal return of his love. Then
came the full measure of her punishment. She was incapable of rising
to the strength, height, and abandon of Barclay's love. She was just
as unworthy of him as she was of Osgood.

How she hated herself!

Somehow she heard that Osgood was going to sea. It is probable that
Aunt Formica's feminine malice directed the disclosure to her ears.
She staggered Dr. Black a moment after she heard the report by asking
if it was true.

"It is," he answered, with dignity, though inwardly scared.

She asked no other question of him, but snapped her fan together and
walked away.

"Lily does not want you to go to sea," he said, when next he saw
Osgood.

Osgood blew a ring of cigar smoke into the air and watched its
disappearance.

"If wedding rings would only disappear that way!" said the Doctor.

Osgood blew another. "Include engagement rings," he said.

"One did vanish," replied the Doctor, slyly.

"I do not believe so. I swear she wears two this moment."

He left the Doctor, shut himself in his room, and wrote a long letter
to Peter a