n't it? if even it isn't true.
But I know better. Well, what about it--about the money?"

"I shall consider," she said quietly. "I paid you before, blackmail! If
I asked you if this was the final payment, and you said Yes. I know that
I need not believe you, so--so I shall consider. I shall take time to
think it over."

"Oh, you will?"

"Yes!"

Down the road came a cart. It lumbered along slowly, the carter trudging
at the horse's head. Slotman looked at the slow-coming figure and cursed
under his breath.

"When shall I hear?"

"I shall think it over, decide how I shall act, whether I shall pay you
this money or not," she said. "In a few days, this day week, not
before." She turned away.

"And--and if I go to Buddesby and get talking?"

"Then of course I pay you nothing!" she said calmly.

That was true. Slotman gritted his teeth. Two minutes later the carter
trudging on his way passed a solitary man smoking by a gate, and far
down the road a woman walked quickly towards Starden.

CHAPTER XXXIV

"FOR HER SAKE"

Into Hugh Alston's life had come two women, women he had loved, both now
engaged to be married to other men, and Hugh Alston was a sorely worried
and perplexed man about both of them.

"I'll go to Cornbridge to-morrow," said Hugh, and he went.

"Where," asked Lady Linden, "the dickens have you been?"

"In the country!"

"Isn't your own country good enough for you?" She looked at him shrewdly.
She saw the worry in his face; it was too open and too honest to make
concealment of his feelings possible.

Marjorie welcomed him with tearful gladness in her eyes. She said
nothing, she held his hand tightly. Not till afterwards did she thank
him for coming.

"I felt you would," she said. "I knew you would!"

And so he was glad he came.

And was she? She wondered, better a thousand times for her and her
happiness if she never saw him again. So long as she lived she would not
forget those four words that had entered like a sword into her heart and
had slain for ever the last hope of happiness for her--"Better than my
life!"

It was odd how women remembered Hugh Alston's words. How even on this
very day another woman was remembering, and was fighting a fight, pride
and obstinacy opposed to fear and loneliness and weariness of soul.

Hugh noticed a change in Tom.

"Hello, Alston," said Tom, and gripped him by the hand; but it was a
weary and dispirited voice and grip, unlike those of To