The servants were removing the coffee as he came in, and Lady Mary was softly at the piano. She continued her music after they were alone, Peter watching her in a light soft as the blurred harmonies of her playing. She had never seemed so elusive. At last she abruptly turned.

"What would you do, Peter, if this were our last evening together?"

Peter was surprised at her sudden question. He took it seriously, and thought a little.

"I should sit quietly here," he said at last, "and learn you by heart."

"But you would want to talk," she protested.

"There has been talking enough."

She had come from the piano, and now sat near him upon a low chair. The silence deepened as she hunted for an opening. Then suddenly she uttered her secret thought:

"I wonder how much you love me, Peter?"

Peter did not in words answer her quiet speculation. He dropped softly beside her on the rug, putting his free hand between hers. There calmly it lay upon her lap as he looked at the fire. The minutes passed till Lady Mary found them intolerable. Her hands closed tightly upon his.

"Peter, dear," she whispered.

Peter turned slowly towards her, startled by the stress of her voice, startled yet more when he found it in her eyes.

"You are in trouble?"

"I have something to tell you," she said.

"About yourself?"

Lady Mary bent her head.

"You remember," she went on, "our evening on the water?"

"I shall not forget it."

"I said then that the time might come when I should be drawn away from you."

"That is impossible," he protested. "I cannot lose you. I shall always know that you are wonderful."

"Will you always think of me like that?" she mournfully wondered.

"You are sacred," said Peter simply. He bent to kiss her fingers, but she drew them sharply back.

"No, Peter," she cried in pain; "I have given your hand away."

Peter stared at her.

"Do you mean," he slowly asked, "that I have no share in you at all?"

"Tell me"—she spoke in a low voice, and her eyes were veiled—"will you hold me sacred"—she shyly quoted his word—"as the wife of another man?"

Peter struggled with this new idea. It raised in him a bitter confusion. His calm devotion was shaken and stirred. Above it triumphed a sense of loss, an instinct to grasp at something threatened.

"You are pledged?" he abruptly asked.

"Yes, Peter." It came from her like a confession.

The idea was now being driven into his brain. He looked at Lady Mary as he had not looked before. She sat back in her chair, turning aside from him. With opened eyes, he saw now the beauty of a woman snatched away. He leant towards her, uttering one hungry syllable:

"Who?"

It was the first time Peter's voice had challenged her. The adoration had gone out of it. It was hard.

"Does it matter?" she protested.

"It is a secret, then?" he coldly asked.

"No; I have promised to marry Lord Wenderby."

"Lord Wenderby," he echoed.

The name tore savagely at his heart, wounding him into jealousy and distrust. He was all blind passion now. Wenderby sprang to his eye, as he had stood darkly beside Lady Mary at the theatre. He saw, redly, in his galloping mind, his shining angel—now a beautiful woman he had exquisitely touched—possessed by another.

"Turn to me, Lady Mary."

It was a command, and she obeyed. She bravely met his burning look, but she did not know how unendurable it had become. It searched and denounced her. Her eyes failed.

"You do not love Lord Wenderby."

Now he accused her. She collected her mind for a defence.

"It is not so simple as that," she pleaded.

"You do not love him," he repeated.

She drew herself erect and faced him.

"You must not speak like that," she said. "You are talking wildly. I tell you again this is not a simple thing."

"Love is a simple thing," he rudely countered.

"You are disappointing me, Peter."

The pain in her eyes for a moment arrested his passion. He stood away from her, and grasped at his vanishing peace. Lady Mary perceived his effort, and appealed once more to the boy who had so suddenly leaped out of her knowledge.

"You will listen to me, Peter!" she urged.

He stood silently waiting to hear what she had to say. She spoke quickly, running from the breaking storm in his eyes:

"I am quite content to be the wife of Lord Wenderby. I have always liked him and admired him. Six months ago he asked me if I would help him to join us politically. I have used my influence to bring him over. This pledges me to work with him."

"Does it pledge you to be his wife?"

"That is understood."

"So Lord Wenderby has been bribed," Peter flashed.

He looked at her cold and hostile. His thwarted pride of possession in Lady Mary stirred a cruelty he had never known.

Between love and anger she cried to him:

"This is not worthy of you, Peter."

But Peter's mind was busy now elsewhere. He was putting time and fact together.

"Lord Wenderby arranged for this six months ago," he suggested.

"He asked me to be his wife six months ago."

Now he stabbed at her again:

"You have let me love the promised wife of Lord Wenderby for six months."

"No," she sharply corrected him; "I answered him yesterday."

"But you had this in your mind?" Peter insisted.

Lady Mary was too deeply grieved for dignity or anger.

"I am on my defence, it seems," she said, suddenly weary of their fruitless talk.

"You have made me your judge," he bitterly retorted. "Why else do you tell me these things?"

"I wanted you to understand."

"I shall never understand."

Lady Mary looked at Peter, and saw the face of an enemy.

"We will put an end to this," she said. "It is useless."

She moved to dismiss him. Peter saw her passing to another.

He took her by the arm, harshly.

"You cannot so easily be rid of me."

"I do not know you, Peter," she protested, drawing away from him.

He released her as to the troubled surface of his mind there came an impulse of his old devotion.

"How can you do this thing?" he asked in a burst of grief. "You were the angel of my life."

Her pride sank at this.

"Peter, be just to me," she said. "This is a sacrifice."

He caught at the word, and returned to his old refrain.

"Sacrifice! You do not love Lord Wenderby."

"I shall be his wife. I am content to work with him."

"Lord Wenderby is old," said Peter brutally. "He has bribed you to give him all your beautiful years."

She shrank from the climbing rhetoric of his passion.

"It is infamous," he almost shouted.

Lady Mary flung back the challenge.

"It is my appointed work. I shall work with Lord Wenderby for all I hold dear. I am going to live as Eustace Haversham died. Cannot you realise that this is required of me? I cannot choose only for myself. You must understand me, Peter. I can only endure this if you will believe that I am doing what is right."

Peter was obstinate.

"I do not believe it," he said. "It is a terrible mistake."

"Once you believed," she reminded him.

"I believed in you."

She faced him, queenly now, as when Peter had worshipped her. His soul fell suddenly at her feet.

"I still believe in you," he cried out. "I believe that you are too dear to be flung away."

"I cannot value myself as you do."

"You are giving yourself up," he said contemptuously, "so that your people for a few more years may live as we are living now."

"So that we may for a few more years be allowed to work as we must," she corrected him.

Peter was silent. He had seen her justification, but his passion prompted him to put it away. Lady Mary now touched him to the quick.

"You begin to see that I am right," she said, searching for his acquiescence.

"I see nothing," he insisted. "I only see that I am losing you."

"You make this very difficult," she said, trembling before the passion of his voice.

"Difficult!" He caught her by the arm. "Why should you care what I say or believe?"

She looked at his fingers imprinted in her flesh. She was weary and faint. She knew that love without reserve was confessed in her eyes.

"You know that I care, Peter. Please let me go."

Peter leaned towards her. He wanted to see her face. She felt that in a moment she must yield the message shut under her lids. She desperately shook free of him and stood away. But Peter read the deep flush of her neck and the motion she made to suppress the labour of her breath. She superbly filled his eyes against a background that had grown dim. He caught at her.

"My darling," he suddenly cried out, "I cannot let you go."

She felt the blood rushing to cover her.

"On your honour, Peter."

For a moment he was checked. "Tell me again to leave you," he said.

She faced him, and her eyes were fast held. He read the whole of her secret. In a flash his arms were about her.

"You cannot tell me to go."

She rested helplessly. Peter held her with a fierce pride. He would not surrender her. She closed her eyes upon a whispered entreaty as he touched her lips. He felt the stir of her heart, and the jealousy of possession utterly claimed him. Something wild and cruel lit in him. He kissed her upon the face and neck. She felt them as the kisses of mere hunger, and she suddenly rebelled.

"Peter, you dishonour me." Her voice smote into him a revelation. Already the passion had gone out of him. It had died in the act of touching her. He knew what he had done; he was utterly ashamed. His arms fell away from her. He stood with bent head waiting for her decree.

"I will write to you, Peter."

He accepted his dismissal, turning without a word. Lady Mary heard that the door had closed. She stood silently for a moment. Then, all that evening, she lay back in her chair stone still. Her eyes were tight shut; but at long intervals a tear was forced from under her lids, and fell insensibly.