Late that same evening, Aliette and her lover sat alone in the familiar drawing-room among the familiar things--the jade idols, the Toby mugs, the Spanish velvets, and the Venetian brocades which Julia Cavendish had collected for her delight. Ever since their hasty dinner--most of the staff were still at Daffadillies--Ronnie had been urging her decision. Ever since dinner, haggard, she had been playing for time.

"It was my mother's wish," he said. "Let's prove the will; publish the book; take the consequences. Anything's worth while--if only he'll divorce you."

"Is it?" Dully, the woman's mind was looking for a loophole. "Is it worth while to ruin three lives?"

"Three?"

"Yes, dear. Yours--and mine ... and--and Hector's,"

"Hector!" The rage in Ronnie's voice terrified her, as it had been terrifying her all the evening. "We needn't consider him. He hasn't considered us. There would have been no need for all this if he'd been reasonable; if he'd brought his action for divorce when I asked him to."

"There are others we ought to consider, too." Aliette's hand, as she fondled her lover's rigid arm, was tremulous. "Mollie, James, my parents. They'll all suffer if you--if we carry this thing through."

"They must look after themselves. They've done nothing to help us. Don't let's discuss the matter further. Believe me, it's the only way to get what we want."

"But Sir Peter said----"

"Sir Peter's only a solicitor. Even if that blackguard did file his petition, the will and the book would have to be published."

"Why are you so bitter, man?" Aliette's eyes suffused.

"I'm not bitter. Only just. He had no mercy on Lucy Towers. I'll have none on him."

Aliette's hands ceased their fondling. For a little while she sat silent, unmoving among the deep cushions. Her mind, busied so long, could function no longer. She felt her womanliness naked--flesh quivering under the lash. She wanted to say to him: 'Ronnie, there's something--something you don't know.' But suddenly her courage--the courage which had carried her, carried them both, through the hard-run months--broke. She began to sob. Like a broken soul she sobbed--sobbed to herself, faintly, feebly; careless--as Lucy Towers had been careless--of the man who strove to comfort her. Words came, feebly, through the sobs:

"Man, I meant to make you so happy. I meant to make everybody happy. But I've failed--failed. I'm not blaming you. I'm not blaming your mother. You and your mother have done everything. Everything. It's only I who have been useless--useless. And I meant, heaven only knows how much I meant, to be of use. Before I ran away with you I reasoned it all out. I thought that I was doing right. There didn't seem to be any one else to consider except you and me." She broke off. Then, almost fiercely, she asked him: "Tell me I've been a little bit of use? Tell me I've made you happy--just sometimes----"

"Of course you've made me happy." He tried to take her hands; but her hands shrank from him.

"I don't believe it You're only saying that to comfort me."

"I'm not."

"You are." Hysteria took her by the throat. "You hate me. If you don't hate me--you ought to. I killed your mother." She broke off again, sobbing.

"Alie"--the tone told her that he thought her crazy--"what's the matter with you? Nothing could have saved Julia. Sir Heron told me."

"Sir Heron wouldn't tell you. Nobody would tell you anything. You're only a man. All men are the same. You're only thinking about yourself. You're not thinking about me. You only want your revenge on--on Hector. Why shouldn't you have your revenge?"

Suddenly, her sobbing ceased; and she faced him--this Aliette he could not understand--dry-eyed and venomous.

"Have your revenge on him if you want to. But don't pretend you're being just. Don't pretend you're being heroic. Don't pretend you're any better than he is. You're not. He's a man, just the same as you are. You talk about my freedom. You say scandal doesn't matter. Perhaps it doesn't--to a man. Perhaps it oughtn't to matter to me, I've belonged to two----"

At that, for the first and last time in their lives, Aliette was physically afraid of her lover. His arms, which had been seeking to comfort, abandoned her. He sprang to his feet. Jealousy, a red and angry aura of jealousy, exuded from him.

"Christ!" he burst out, "Christ! You needn't remind me of that."

Speech died at his lips. Furiously he strode from her--strode up and down the familiar room, the room in which, months since, she had given her unspoken promise to Julia Cavendish. The scene came back to her now. She thought, "What have I been saying? Dear God, what have I been saying?" Hysteria went out of her, as fever goes out, leaving her weak, nerveless.

"Damn it!" he was muttering, "damn it! Do you think I ever forget that once--once----"

She wanted to cry out to him, "I didn't mean to hurt you. You're hurting me now, hurting me beyond all bearing." But she knew that, hurt, she dared not cry out; knew that this was the hardest of the path, the full price, the full torment exacted.

Sitting there, rigid, uncomplaining, teeth bit to the under lip lest the mouth should cry out its torture, she remembered the long years with Hector, the mornings and the evenings when, facing him over the breakfast-table or the dinner-table, listening after dinner to his voice in the library, tolerating--for the sake of the dream which this other man had made true--the ungentle fury of his caresses, she had learned to wear the mask which so many married women wear, the mask of compliance.

Must she, for Ronnie's sake, still wear the mask? Daren't she tell him--the truth? Wouldn't he--knowing the truth--flinch from his purpose? Wasn't it worth while, more than worth while, to keep silence till the die was cast? Couldn't she still play for time? Time! There might be some way--some other way to freedom. If only she weren't so afraid--so strangely and newly afraid! If only Ronnie were not so angry!

And suddenly she knew that Ronnie's anger had left him. His feet stopped in mid-stride. Slowly he came across the room toward her; and she could see a little of the old understanding tenderness in his blue eyes. "Alie," he said, "forgive me."

"What is there to forgive?" Her voice sounded listless, broken. "It was my fault. I oughtn't to have spoken as I did. I called up the past. I had no right to call up the past. The past's dead. There's only the future----"

"Our future." He was on his knees to her now; and dumbly she put out her hands to him; dumbly she fondled his temples. Once more she wanted to cry; but no tears came. Her tongue felt parched, as though by some bitter fruit. "It wasn't your fault, Alie. You're tired. And perhaps I'm not being just. Perhaps I do want my revenge. But it's only for your sake"--his hands sought her shoulders--"only for your sake that I hate him. I think, I know, that if he'd made you happy, if he'd been kind to you, I could bear the thought of him. But he made you miserable. He hurt you. He's hurting you now. When I think of that, I go mad; mad with hatred."

She leaned forward; and words came to her. "You mustn't hate him. We mustn't either of us hate him. We're as much to blame as he is. At least, I am. I'm a rotten woman. Rotten."

"You're not. You 're the best woman in the world." Still on his knees to her by the sofa, he pressed her to him--gently, with that gentleness which had first won her heart. And desperately her heart wanted to tell him everything. But tears, tears of sheer weakness, choked her once more.

"Don't cry, darling. Please don't cry." Conscience-wrung, Ronnie could find no other words. The sense of his responsibility, of that awful responsibility for another's happiness, which only illegal lovers know, coiled--tighter than her arms; tighter than any hempen rope--round his neck. Her tears on his cheeks were as warm rain conjuring up the seedlings of remembrance. He recollected all the miracle of their early love for one another, all their resistances and their yieldings, all the weeks and all the months through which they had faced the herd's hostility in mutual loyalty, setting love above the law, trusting in one another--he in her as she in him--for faith. Always they had kept faith with one another. Yet always she, the woman, had borne the heavier burden. And in his ignorance he thought: "That's why I must insist--insist on this thing going through."

Then a voice, as it were his mother's, whispered to the mind of Ronald Cavendish: "Comfort her, Ronnie, comfort her. Before you ask this last sacrifice, tell her that the past has not been in vain"; and then, leaning on her lover, her eyes tear-blinded, her hands slack, her limbs relaxed in misery, Aliette heard him whisper:

"Darling woman. Darling girl. You're not to think that I don't understand. I do understand--everything." Like waves, the deeps of his fondness poured from him, poured over her, healing her wounds; and for a moment she thought that he had guessed the truth.

But his next words dispelled illusion. "I know all that you've given up for my sake; all that I've made you give. The blame, if blame there be, is mine. You've sacrificed yourself for me."

"It's no sacrifice." Hardly, she stirred in his arms. "I've never regretted----"

"Nor I, dear. Nor I. I've never regretted for one single instant. I never shall regret. Ever since that first day I saw you, you've been all the world to me. All the world. That's why I want you to be strong, not to be afraid of scandal, to let me do as my mother wished."

"Ronnie"--her eyes, wet with tears, sought his,--"have you counted the cost?"

"Yes." He released her; and she saw, as he rose up, that he was still resolute. "I've counted the cost. And it'll be heavy--heavier than anything we've had to bear yet. But it'll be worth while, Alie. Anything's worth while--if only I can win you your freedom."

"But your career----"

"My career doesn't matter any more. I've had success. I know how little it's worth. Nothing matters to me now except your happiness."

"My happiness?" Wistfully she looked down at her pale hands.

"Yes, your happiness. Oh, my dear, don't think I haven't realized, all these months, that you'll never be happy--really and truly happy--while you belong, legally, to that man."

"Ronnie"--she was trying, trying to tell him--"I have been happy. Always. It isn't that----"

"Yes, it is." He was afraid lest, pleading again, she should weaken his decision. "It's only that. Once you're my wife, you'll forget all the unhappy times."

"Shall I?" she thought. "Will that little ceremony make me forget that once, once I was Hector's?"

"That's why I want you to make up your mind," went on Ronnie. "Now. To-night. That's why I didn't want you to listen to Sir Peter. Alie, it isn't for my revenge I'm asking you to let me do this. It's for your own sake. If you were a different sort of woman, a rotten woman, perhaps it wouldn't matter so much--our not being married. But you--you can't go on forever like this. Just think, darling, just think what it would mean if we were to have children."

"Children," she repeated dully, "children." And then, his very vehemence terrifying her again, "Oh, Ronnie, Ronnie--don't ask me to decide to-night."