"Then you must come back with me," said Grantley. Young Blake sprang forward a step, crying—"By God, no!"

Neither of them heeded him; their eyes were on one another. Already the fight was between the two, and the two only.

"Do you really think that?" she asked. "I don't know how you come to be here—I suppose Christine warned you somehow; but it's by mere accident that you are here, and that I haven't gone before now. It makes no difference. You're not in time, as you call it. The thing is settled already; it was settled when I planned to come, not when I came. What you meant doesn't count. Do you really think I shall come back now?"

"Yes, you must come back now."

"Back to that life? Never! Of course you don't know what it was to me, and I don't suppose I could tell you. You wouldn't understand."

Blake threw himself into a chair by the window. He was helplessly impatient of the situation. Grantley came a little nearer the table and stood there, to all seeming impassive. The appearance was not very deceptive. He was not now dominated by emotion; he was possessed by a resolve. His love for his wife was far buried in his heart; his set purpose was all he knew.

"I don't see what you had to complain of," he said coldly. "The way we lived was your choice, not mine. But I'm not going to discuss that. I'm here to take you home to your husband's house and to your child."

"I've faced all that a thousand times, and answered it a thousand times. It can't move me now. You'd better go away, Grantley."

Again Blake rose; he did not lack physical courage.

"I'll go with you. I'm at your service," he said. "But outside; you shan't stay here."

He waited a moment for an answer, but, getting none, nor so much as a look, sank awkwardly into his seat again.

Grantley spoke to his wife.

"I know what happened. Before you did this, you fogged your mind with all sorts of fantastic ideas. You're not the woman to do this kind of thing easily."

"Fantastic ideas! Yes, they seem so to you. The fantastic idea of having something to live for, some life, something else than a prison, than repression, than coldness. I had lots of those fantastic ideas, Grantley."

"You had your child."

"I tell you I've faced it." She pressed her fingers hard into her cheek and frowned. "The child made it worse," she jerked out fiercely. "Seeing you with the child was——" She shook her head with a shiver.

Grantley raised his eyebrows.

"As bad as that?" he asked mockingly. He paused, and went on: "But this is all beside the point. Supposing it was as bad as you say, what then? You had made your bargain; you chose to take me; you relied on your own opinion. Say it was a mistaken opinion—what difference does that make?"

"It does make a difference. I'm not called upon to throw away every chance of happiness because of one mistake."

"That's just what you are called upon to do—in civilised society."

"You don't actually propose an abstract argument," she asked, "now—under these circumstances?" She smiled derisively.

"Oh, no! But your point of view compelled a protest. I'm not here to argue; I'm here to take you back—or, if you won't come, to tell you the consequences."

"I'm prepared for the consequences."

That gave young Blake another chance. He rose and came forward.

"Yes, she is—and so am I," he said; "and that ought to end the matter between us. We're prepared for the trouble and the scandal and all that; and I'm prepared for anything else you may think proper to ask. We've weighed all that, and made up our minds to it. That's the answer we have to give."

He spoke in a low voice, but very quickly and with passion; evidently he had hard work to keep control of himself. When he finished speaking, there was a moment's silence. He looked from Grantley to Sibylla, then went back to his chair; but he drew it nearer and listened intently.

"It is so," said Sibylla. "We've made up our minds to all that."

Grantley passed his hand across his brow—almost the first movement that he had made. He was about to speak when another short fit of vehemence caught hold of Sibylla.

"Yes," she cried, striking the table with her hand, "and it's better than that life of sham and fraud and failure and heartbreak! Yes, a thousand, thousand times better!"

He let the gust pass by, and then spoke slowly, as though he weighed his words.

"Those are the consequences to you and your—your friend here," he said. "Have you thought of the consequences to me?"

"To you? Am I so necessary?" She laughed bitterly.

"And to the boy?"

"Not so bad as growing up in such a home as ours!" she flashed out fiercely again.

"Oh, that's the way you argued that?" he said with a smile. "I was rather wondering. However there are other consequences still." He came yet a pace nearer to her, so that he was close to the table, and rested one hand on it. "There will be other consequences still," he said. "I don't accept the position you propose for me. I don't accept these consequences which you have been so good as to face and decide upon. I refuse them totally—both for myself and for my son I refuse them utterly. It's fair you should understand that. I refuse them root and branch."

Blake leant forward, ready to spring up. The idea of violence came into his head, the idea that Grantley might be armed. Grantley noticed his movement, and at last addressed a word to him.

"Don't be afraid. I don't mean that," he said with a short laugh.

Sibylla spoke to him, sadly now.

"You can't refuse. It's put out of your power. This thing must be. It has become inevitable. There's no use in talking of refusing the consequences. They won't be as bad as you think."

"It's not inevitable; it's not out of my power. It's entirely in my power to accept your consequences or not to accept them, to face them or not to face them; and I have decided. I won't be, and I won't be known as, what you're making me; and your son shan't have to confess you his mother before men."

Young Blake looked at him with a puzzled impatience; Sibylla with a slow pondering glance. She twisted a ring on her finger as she asked:

"What do you mean by that?"

"In this world nothing need happen to us that we don't choose to bear, and nothing to those who are in our power that we don't choose to accept for them."

"What are you talking about?" asked Blake fretfully. "It sounds all nonsense to me."

He leant back with a scornful toss of his head. This sort of thing had lasted long enough, in his opinion.

"Tell me what you mean," said Sibylla, leaning forward across the table.

Grantley announced the resolve that possessed him, born of those bitter meditations, of those intolerable pictures of the future which had formed themselves in his mind as he battled through the storm to Fairhaven. He uttered it not as a threat, but as a warning; it was, as he had said, fair that she should understand.

"If you persist, I shall kill Frank and myself to-night."

Blake broke into a loud scornful laugh, sticking his hands in his pockets. Grantley turned towards him, smiling slightly.

"Oh, this isn't a melodrama, you know," Blake said, "and we're not to be bluffed like that. Don't be so damned absurd, Imason! On my soul, I've had enough of this business without having to listen to stuff like that!"

"Do you think it's bluff and melodrama?" Grantley asked Sibylla. "Do you think I've no real intention of doing it?"

She looked up at him intently.

"You love yourself more than the boy, and your pride more than life or happiness," she said slowly. He frowned, but heard her without interruption. "So I think you might do it," she ended.

"Sibylla!" cried Blake, leaning forward again.

A gesture from her arrested his speech. He rose slowly to his feet and stood listening.

"I may be made a fool of. I don't make a fool of myself. If I pledge myself to you to do it, you know I shall do it, Sibylla?"

"Yes, then you would do it," she agreed.

"Oh, but it's nonsense, it's rank madness, it's—it's inconceivable!" Blake broke out.

"I do now so pledge myself," said Grantley.

Sibylla nodded; she understood. She leant back in her chair now, regarding her husband thoughtfully.

Grantley's pale face was set in a fixed smile; he met her gaze steadily.

"It's madness—you'll be stopped!" Blake burst out. "I can't believe you mean it. Anyhow, you'll be stopped."

"By you? Will you send for a policeman? or will you come to my house and stop me? Nothing can stop me unless you kill me. Is that your choice?"

He spoke to Blake, but he looked still at Sibylla. Blake came near and scrutinised the pale face with eyes whose expression grew from wonder and incredulity into a horrified apprehension. The silence now seemed long.

"Yes," said Sibylla at last, "it's like you. That's what you'd do. I never thought of it; but I'm not surprised. It's you. It's just that in you which has made my life an impossible thing. You sacrificed me to it. You would sacrifice yourself and your son. Yes, it's you."

She put her hands up before her face for a moment, pressing her fingers on her eyelids. Then her eyes sought his face again.

"But, Sibylla——" cried Blake.

"Yes, he'd do it, Walter," she interrupted, not turning round.

Blake took two restless paces to and fro, and sank into his chair again.

"You understand now. It lies with you," said Grantley to his wife. "I've told you. I was bound to tell you. Now it lies with you."

Again passion seized her.

"No, no, that's false! It doesn't lie with me! It lies at your door, both the crime—the hideous crime—and, I pray God, the punishment!"

"I'm not talking about the crime or the punishment," he said coldly. "I take those on myself as much as you like. What depends on you is whether the thing happens. That's all I meant to say."

Young Blake was staring at him now as if fascinated by his firm and hideous resolve. Slowly it had been driven into Blake's brain that the man meant what he said, that he would do the thing. The man looked like it, and Sibylla believed he would. He would kill himself—yes, and the pretty child with whom Sibylla had been used to play. He could see the picture of that now—of Sibylla's beautiful motherhood. His heart turned sick within him as he began to believe Grantley's sombre pledge.

"It's a lie," said Sibylla in grim defiance. "Nothing depends on me. It's the evil of your own heart. I've nothing to do with it."

"It's with you to bring it about or to prevent it."

"No!" she cried, rising to her feet in the agonised strain of her heart—"no, no! That's a lie—a lie! On your head be it! Ah, but perhaps it would be best for him! God knows, perhaps it would be best!"

"So I think," said Grantley quietly. "And you accept that?"

"No, I acknowledge no responsibility—not a jot."

"Well, leave the question of responsibility. But it's your will that this shall happen sooner than that you should leave this man?"

"Sooner than that I should come back to you, that life of ours begin again, and Frank grow up to a knowledge of it!"

"And it's my will, sooner than that he should grow up to a knowledge of how his mother ended it. That's settled then?"

"It's no bargain!" she protested fiercely. "You have settled it."

"But it is settled?" he persisted.

"If you do it, may God never pardon you!"

"Perhaps. But you know that it is settled?"

She made no answer.

"You can't deny that you know. So be it."

He faced her for a moment longer; her figure swayed a little, but she stood her ground. She was not beaten down. And she knew the thing was settled, unless by chance, at the last, pity should enter Grantley's heart. But she did not believe pity could enter that heart; he had never shown her that there was a way.

The smile rested still on Grantley's face as he regarded his wife. She looked very beautiful in her fierce defiance, her loathing of him, her passionate protest, her refusal to be beaten down, her facing of the thing. She had a fine spirit; it did not know defeat or cravenness. She was mad with her ideas. Perhaps he was mad with his. And the ideas clashed—with ruin to her life, and his, and the child's. But she did not bow her head any more than he would bend his haughty neck.

"At least you have courage," he said to her. "It is settled. And now I'll say good-bye and go. I'll interrupt you no more."

It was his first taunt of that kind. It seemed to pass unheeded by Sibylla; but young Blake's face turned red, and he clenched his hands; but not in anger. A wave of horror passed over him. He would not interrupt longer what his coming had interrupted—that was what Grantley Imason meant. He would leave them to themselves while he went back alone to his home, and there found the sleeping child. But the idea of that—the picture of the one house and the other—was too fearful. How could the two bear to think of that? How could they stand there and decide on that? It was unnatural, revolting, alien from humanity. Yet they meant it. Blake doubted that no more, and the conviction of it unmanned him. He had been prepared for scandal, he had been ready to risk his life. Those things were ordinary; but this thing was not. Scandal is one thing, tragedy another. This grim unyielding pair of enemies threw tragedy in his appalled face. It was too much. A groan burst from his lips.

"My God!" he moaned.

They both turned and looked at him—Sibylla gravely, Grantley with his rigid smile.

"My God, I can't bear it!" He was writhing in his chair, as though in keen bodily pain. "It's too awful! We—we should think of it all our lives. I should never get rid of it. I should see the poor little beggar's face. I can't stand that. I never thought of anything like that. I never meant anything like that. Poor little Frank! My God, you can't mean it, Imason?"

"You know I mean it. It's nothing to you. The responsibility is ours. What do you count for? It was you or another—that's all. Neither my life nor my son's is anything to you."

"But it would—it would always be there. I could never sleep at nights. I should feel like—like a murderer. For pity's sake——"

He came towards Grantley, stretching out his hands for mercy. Grantley made no sign. Blake turned to Sibylla. She too was stiff and still, but her eyes rested on him in compassion. He turned away and threw himself into the chair again. A convulsive movement ran through his body, and he gave a loud sob.

Sibylla walked slowly away to the hearthrug, and stood looking at the agonised young man. Grantley waited in immovable patience. The thing was not finished yet.

"The horror of it!" Blake moaned almost inarticulately. He turned to weak rage for an instant and hissed across to Grantley: "If I had a revolver, I'd shoot you where you stand."

"That would be better for me, but not better for the boy," said Grantley.

"I can't understand you," Blake gasped, almost sobbing again.

"Why should you? My account is not to be rendered to you. If I've ruined my wife's life—and you've heard her say I have—if I take my own and my son's, what is it to you?"

In Grantley's slow measured words there breathed a great contempt. What, he seemed to say, were any great things, any stern issues, to this unmanned hysterical creature, who dressed up his desires in fine clothes, and let them beguile him whither he knew not, only to start back in feeble horror at the ruin that he had invited? What was it all to him, or he to it? It was he or another. The real battle was still between himself and Sibylla. With what eyes was she looking on this young man? He turned from the collapsed figure and faced his wife again.

But her eyes were now on Walter Blake, with a pleading, puzzled, pitying look. The next moment she walked quickly across the room and knelt down by his side, taking one of his hands in both of hers. She began to whisper consolation to him, praying him not to distress himself, to be calm and brave, tenderly reproaching his lack of self-control. She was with him as Grantley had seen her with the child. He wondered to see that, and his wonder kept his temper under command. There did not seem enough to make a man's passion rage or his jealousy run wild, even though she whispered close in Blake's ear, and soothingly caressed his hand.

"Don't be so distressed," he heard her murmur. "It's not your fault, dear. Don't be frightened about it."

He tried to shake her off with a childish petulance, but she persevered. Yet she could not calm him. He broke from her and sprang to his feet, leaving her kneeling.

"I can't face it! By God, I can't!" he cried.

"It will happen," said Grantley Imason. "If not to-night—if anything prevents me to-night—still very soon. You'll hear of it very soon."

The young man shuddered.

"The poor little chap—the poor innocent little chap!" he muttered hoarsely. He turned to Grantley. "For Heaven's sake, think again!"

"It's you who have to think. I have thought. I've little time for more thought. You've all your life to think about it—all your life with that woman, who is the mother of the child."

"Why do you torment him?" broke out Sibylla angrily.

But she rose slowly and drew away from Blake as she spoke.

Grantley shrugged his shoulders scornfully.

"The fellow has no business in an affair like this," he said. "He'd better get back to his flirtations."

"I never thought of anything like this."

The repetition came from Blake like some dull forlorn refrain.

He put his hand to his throat and gulped with a hard dry swallow. He looked round the room, made for a table where some whisky stood, and took a drink of it. Then he half staggered back to his chair, and sat down all in a heap. His limit was reached. He was crushed between the upper and the nether stone—between Grantley's flinty pride and the ruthless fanaticism of Sibylla's ideas. Between them they would make him, who had wanted to be good, who had had such fine aspirations, such high-coloured dreams, such facile emotions, so impulsive a love—between them they would make him a murderer—a murderer in his own eyes. Whatever hands did the deed, to the end of his days conscience would cry out that his were red.

Sibylla sighed. Her eyes were very mournful. She spoke, as it seemed, more to herself than to either of them.

"I wanted to make him happy, and I've made him very unhappy. I can do it, but he can't do it. I mustn't ask it of him. He would never be happy, I could never make him happy. Even if I could be happy, he couldn't; it's too hard for him. I don't know what to do now."

Grantley neither spoke nor moved.

"I've no right to ask it of any man. Nobody could agree to it, nobody could endure it. There's misery both ways now."

She went to Blake, who was sitting in the apathetic stupor which had followed his raving outburst. Again she knelt by him and whispered to him soothingly. At last Grantley spoke.

"It would be well if we were home before it's light and the servants up," he said.

She looked across at him from beside Blake's knee. She looked long and searchingly. His smile was gone; his manner and air were courteous, however peremptory.

"Yes, it would be well," she said. She rose and came a little way towards him. "There's no help for it. I can't escape from you. I'm bound to you in bonds I can't loosen. I've tried. I've stood at nothing. I wish to Heaven I could! Going back is like going back to death. But perhaps he's right. Better my living death than the thing you meant to do." She paused and ended: "I'll go back to the child, but I will not come back to you."

"You give all I've asked," said Grantley with cold politeness.

She looked round at young Blake with a pitiful smile.

"It's the only way, my dear. With this man what he is, it's the only way. I must leave you alone."

Blake leaned towards her with a passionate cry of pain. She reasoned gently with him.

"But you know the alternative—you've heard it. We can't help it. This man is capable of doing it, and he would find out a way. I don't see that we could do anything at all to stop him. Then when you heard it, it would be so terrible to you. You'd hate yourself. Oh, and, my dear, I think you'd hate me! And I couldn't bear that. No, you must be reasonable. There's no other way."

Blake hid his face in his hands. He made no further effort. He knew that her words were true.

Sibylla walked into the bedroom, leaving the two alone. Neither now moved nor spoke. The storm outside seemed to have abated, for the rain dashed no more against the windows, and the wind was not howling round the walls of the house. It was very still. Grantley Imason presently began to button his coat, and then to dust the wet off his hat with his coat sleeve.

Sibylla came back in her hat and cloak.

"We must get something to carry you," said Grantley. "I wonder if we could raise a cart here!"

"How did you come?"

"I rode over."

"I don't want a cart. I shall walk beside your horse."

"Impossible! At this time of night! And such a night!"

"I shall walk—I must walk! I can't sit in a cart and——"

Her gesture explained the rest. Struggling along on foot, she might keep her wits. Madness lay in sitting and thinking.

"As you will," said Grantley.

She had begun to draw on her gloves; but when she looked at Blake she drew them quickly off again, and thrust them into a pocket of her cloak. She walked past Grantley to Blake, and took hold of both his hands. Bending over him, she kissed him twice.

"Thank you for having loved me, Walter," she said. "Good-bye."

Blake said nothing. He held her hands and looked up imploringly in her face. Then she disengaged herself from his grasp and turned round to her husband.

"I'm ready," she said. "Let us go."

Grantley bowed slightly, went to the door, and opened it for her. She looked back once at Blake, murmuring:

"For having loved me, Walter," and kissed her hand to him.

With no sign of impatience Grantley waited. Himself he took no heed of Blake, but followed Sibylla out of the room in unbroken silence.

When he found himself alone, young Blake sprang towards the door, giving a cry like some beast's roar of rage and disappointment. But his feet carried him no more than half-way. Half-way was all he ever got. Then he reeled across to where the liquor was, and drank some more of it, listening the while to the paces of Grantley's horse on the stone flags outside the inn. As they died away, he finished his liquor and got back to his chair. He sat a moment in dull vacancy; then his nerves failed him utterly, and he began to sob helplessly, like a forsaken frightened child. As Grantley Imason said, he had no business in an affair like that.