The fight which Sydney Campion had had to wage with his creditors was bitter enough up to the time of his marriage. Then there had been a lull for a few months, during which it was confidently said and believed that he was about to touch a large sum of money, and that all who had put their trust in him would be rewarded.

Month after month went by, and there was no realization of the prospect. Sydney touched no money but what he earned. He might, no doubt, have touched some of his wife's money, even for the payment of his old debts, if he had told her the distress that he was in. But it had never occurred to him to be thus sincere with Nan. He had thought to figure before her as one who was not dependent on her fortune, who could very comfortably play with his hundreds, though not able, like herself, to be generous with thousands. He would, in fact, have been ashamed to own his rotten financial condition, either to Nan or to any of his social or political friends; and he fancied that he was concealing this condition in a very ingenious manner when he made a liberal outlay in connection with their quiet marriage, the honeymoon abroad, and the subsequent arrangements of their household in London.

This was all the more unfortunate because Nan, just of age, with her fortune in her own hands, would have given him anything without demur or question, if she had for a moment suspected that he needed it. His concealment was so effectual that it never entered her unsophisticated mind that this barrister in good practice, this rising politician, who seemed to have his feet on the ladder of success, could be crushed and burdened with debt. Sydney, however, was by no means blind. He knew well enough that he could have had the few thousands necessary to clear him if he had asked his wife for a cheque; but he did not trust her love sufficiently to believe that she would think as well of him from that day forward as she had done before, and he was not large-minded enough to conceive himself as ever shaking off the sense of obligation which her gift in such a form would impose upon him.

He had therefore drifted, in the matter of his debts, from expedient to expedient, in the hope that by good fortune and good management he might avoid the rocks that beset his course, and reach smooth water by his own exertion. But, as ill luck would have it, he had given a bill for six hundred pounds, due on the 23rd of November, to a certain Mr. Copley, a man who had been especially disgusted by Sydney's failure to obtain ready money at the time of his marriage, and who for this and other reasons had worked himself up into a malicious frame of mind. But on the 23rd of November, Sydney and his wife had run over to Paris for a few days with Sir John and Lady Pynsent, and then Nan had been so seriously indisposed that Sydney could not leave her without seeming unkindness; so that they did not reach London again until the 26th. This delay opened a chapter of incidents which ended as Sydney had not foreseen.

He had not forgotten the date of the bill, and knew that it was important to provide for it; but he did not anticipate that the last day of grace would have expired before he could communicate with the man who held his signature.

Early on the morning of the 27th, he set out for Mr. Copley's office; and it so happened that at the same moment Mr. Copley set out also for Sydney's private house.

"Master in?" said Mr. Copley, who was a man of few words.

"No, sir."

"Lady in?"

"My mistress does not receive any one so early."

"Take that up—answer important—bearer waiting."

The footman condescended so far as this, and gave Mr. Copley's letter into the charge of Mrs. Campion's maid.

In less than ten minutes Nan sent for the unwelcome visitor. She was very pale when she received him, and she looked so young and fair that Mr. Copley was a little taken aback. He knew that Sydney had married an heiress, and it was from her, therefore, that he had determined, if possible, to get the money; but he half repented his resolve when he saw Mrs. Campion's face. "Too young to know anything about business," he said to himself.

But Nan was more business-like than he expected. She had for some time insisted on knowing a good deal about her own money matters, and she was well aware of her powers.

"Where is this paper—this acceptance you mention in your letter?" she began.

Mr. Copley silently took it from his notebook, and laid it on the table.

"Why did you bring this here? or, rather, why did you send it in to me? Mr. Campion is not difficult to find when he is wanted. This is, of course, his business." There was a little indignation in her tone.

"Beg your pardon, madam. You will observe the date of the acceptance. I presented it yesterday."

"At the bank?"

"Yes."

Nan bit her lip. She knew what this signified, and she would have given a thousand pounds to undo what had happened.

She went to a drawer in her writing-table and quietly took out a cheque-book. "We were delayed in returning to England by my illness," she said, as indifferently as she could. "Mr. Campion has gone out for the purpose of seeing to this." Her heart smote her for making a statement which she could not vouch for, but as Mr. Copley only bowed and looked uninterested, she went on rapidly, "As you have the paper with you it will save time—it will be satisfactory, I suppose—if I give you a cheque for it?"

"Amply satisfactory."

She sat down before the table and took the pen in her hand, hesitating a moment as to whether she ought to ask for further details. Her tears and her curiosity were alike aroused, and Mr. Copley divined the question, which she hardly knew how to put into words. He produced a sheet of notepaper, containing a few memoranda, and passed it across the table.

"That was to refresh my memory if necessary; but happily it isn't. Mr. Campion may like to see it however. He will find it is all correct. I knew I was right in asking to see you, ma'am."

Nan did not look at the memoranda. She was satisfied that she had the details before her for her own or Sydney's consideration if necessary. She signed her cheque and took possession of the dishonored bill; and then Mr. Copley departed.

When he was gone, she caught up the sheet of paper and hastily glanced at it.

"1880—studs, pin, money advanced £50. 1881—ring, money advanced £100; bracelet, necklace, pendant, money advanced £150——" and so on. Further down the page, Nan's eye was caught by the words: "Diamond and sapphire ring."

"Ah!" she said, catching her breath as if she were in pain, and laying the paper down on the table, "that was mine!"

The ring was on her finger as she spoke. It had been her engagement ring. She looked at it for a minute or two, then slowly, took it off and put it into the drawer.

Next, with an absent look upon her face, she took up a small taper, and lighted it; and, holding Mr. Copley's paper by one corner, she raised it to the flame and converted it into ashes. One line escaped. A fragment of the paper was scorched but not consumed, and as she took it up to make her work more thorough, the words and a date caught her attention once again.

"Bracelet, necklace, pendant, bought after we knew each other," she murmured with a curious smile. "Those were not for me. I wonder——"

But she did not go on. It was the first time that a shadow from Sydney's past had crossed her life; and she dared not investigate it too closely. She put the bill and her cheque-book out of sight, and sat down to think over the present position of affairs.

Sydney came home just before lunch-time, and, hearing that she was in her own little sitting-room (she would not have it called a boudoir), went up to her. He looked vexed and anxious, as Nan was quick to notice, but he came up to her side and kissed her affectionately.

"Better, Nan?" She had not been very well when he left her: indeed, the delicacy of her health had lately been more marked, and had several times given him cause for uneasiness.

"Yes, thank you. But you don't look well, Sydney."

She hoped that he would tell her what was wrong. To her disappointment, he smiled, and answered lightly.

"I'm all right, Nan. I have a good deal to do just now, and am rather tired—that is all."

"Tired—and anxious?" she said, looking at him with more keenness than he had thought her soft eyes capable of expressing.

"Anxious! no, I have not much to be anxious about, have I?"

He spoke with a laugh; but, to her fancy, there was something half-alarmed and half-defiant in the pose of his lifted head, the glance of his handsome bright eyes. Her heart sank a little: it seemed to her that it would have been nobler in her husband to tell her the whole truth, and it had never occurred to her before to think of him as ignoble in any way.

"I suppose you do not want to tell me for fear of troubling me," she said, with a tremor in her voice; "but I think I know what you are anxious about, Sydney."

He gave a little start as he turned towards her.

"Some man has been here whilst you were out, and he sent up this letter with a request that it should be opened. Look!" she said, giving him the bill, "you can tear it up now. I was sure you had gone out to see about it, but I thought it better that I should settle it at once. I hope"—with a little girlish nervousness—"you don't mind?"

He had sat down on a chair when she showed him Mr. Copley's letter, with the look of a man determined to bear a blow, but he sprang up again at the sight of his dishonored acceptance.

"And you have paid it, Nan?" he cried.

"Yes, I paid it. Oh, Sydney, it was a little thing to do! If only you had told me months ago!"

Her eyes brimmed over with tears at last. She had been smarting under a sense of terrible humiliation ever since Mr. Copley's visit, but hitherto she had not wept. Now, when her husband took her in his arms and looked into her eyes, the pain at her heart was somewhat assuaged, although the tears fell swiftly down her pale cheeks.

"Nan, I never dreamed that I should find your kindness so bitter to me," Sydney said.

He was profoundly moved by her gentleness and by her generosity alike. But inasmuch as it requires more generosity of nature to accept a gift nobly than to make it, he felt himself shamed in her eyes, and his wife was in her turn pained by the consciousness of his shame.

"Why should you be afraid to trust me?" she said. "All that concerns you concerns me as well; and I am only setting myself free from trouble and anxiety if I do anything for you. Don't you understand? And as far as my money is concerned, you know very well that if it had not been for John and those tiresome lawyers, you should have had it all and spent it, if you chose, without the slightest reference to me. What grieves me, dearest, is that you should have been suffering without taking me into your confidence."

"I ought to have done so," said Sydney, rather reluctantly, "but I felt as if I could not tell you all these paltry, sordid details. You might have thought——"

Then he paused, and the color rose darkly in his face.

"I should have thought nothing but what was honorable to you," said Nan, throwing back her graceful head with a gesture of natural pride and indignation.

"And now you think the worse of me?"

"No, no!" she cried, stealing one arm round his neck, "I think nothing bad of you—nothing! Only you will trust me, now, Sydney? You will not hide things from me again?"

"No, my darling, nothing that you ought to know," he said. There was a touch of new but restrained emotion in his voice. It struck him for almost the first time how much of his life he had hidden from her frank and innocent eyes.

Presently, when he had kissed her tears away, she begged him to tell her what he still actually owed, and, after some little demur, he consented. The amount of the debt, which lay heavily on his conscience, was comparatively a trivial thing to her. But when he had told her all, she looked at him with eyes which, although very loving, were full of wonder and dismay.

"Poor Sydney!" she said caressingly. "My poor boy! As if you could give your mind properly to anything with this heavy burden on it! To-morrow we can get the money, and pay off all these people. Then you will be able to work without any disturbance."

"Thanks to you, Nan," said her husband, with bowed head. She could not understand why he did not look more relieved. She never suspected that his mind was burdened with another debt, that money could not pay.

She had not asked him for any explanation of the items in the paper that she had read. The momentary wonder that had flitted across her mind passed as quickly as it came. The gifts that were not for her had been intended perhaps for his sister Lettice, perhaps for the wedding present of a friend. She did not like to ask. But a slightly uncomfortable sensation remained in her mind, and she never again wore the ring for which, as it now turned out, she herself had had to pay.

Sydney's position was certainly a painful one just then. But he was at any rate relieved of the burden of his debts, and he hoped, with some compunction of heart, that no other secret of his life would ever come to his wife's ears. It was about this time that he received the letter from Cora Walcott and had the interview with Lettice, of which mention has been made; and Nan fancied that it was anxiety about his sister that caused him to show signs of moodiness and depression. He had told her nothing more of Lettice's doings than he was obliged to tell, but other friends were not so reticent, and Lady Pynsent had enlightened Nan's mind very speedily with respect to the upshot of "the Walcott affair." Nan made some reference to it shortly afterwards in conversation with her husband, and was struck by the look of pain which crossed his face as he replied,

"Don't talk about it, Nan, my dear."

"He must be much fonder of his sister than I thought," Nan said to herself. She made one more effort to speak.

"Could I do nothing, Sydney? Suppose I went to her, and told her how grieved you were——"

"You, Nan! For heaven's sake, don't let me hear of your crossing the threshold of that house!" cried Sydney, with vehemence, which Nan very naturally misunderstood.

It was, on the whole, a relief to her to find that he did not want her to take any active steps in any direction. She was not very strong, and was glad to be left a good deal at peace. Sydney was out for a great part of the day, and Nan took life easily. Lady Pynsent came to sit with her sometimes, or drove in the Park with her, and other friends sought her out: she had tender hopes for the future which filled her mind with sweet content, and she would have been happy but for that slight jar between Sydney and herself. That consciousness of a want of trust which never ceased to give her pain. Sydney himself was the most attentive of husbands when he was at home: he brought her flowers and fruit, he read aloud to her, he hung over her as she lay on the sofa, and surrounded her with a hundred little marks of his affection—such as she would have thought delicious while her confidence in him was still unshaken. She still found pleasure in them; but her eyes were keener than they had been, and she knew that beneath all the manifestations of his real and strong attachment to her there ran a vein of apology and misgiving—a state of things inexpressibly unsatisfactory to a woman who knows how to love and how to trust.

Sydney, only half-conscious that something was wrong, had no idea how to mend matters, and was, therefore, in a fair way to make them worse. Frankness would have appeared brutal to him, and he did not see how subtly poisonous was the effect of his habits of concealment upon his wife's mind. Gifted with the instinct of discernment, which in sensitive women is almost like a sort of second-sight, she knew, without knowing how she knew, that he had trouble which he did not confide to her, secrets which his tongue would never tell. He could deceive her as to their existence so long as the period of illusion lasted; but as soon as her eyes were opened her sight became very keen indeed. And he, believing himself always successful in throwing dust in her eyes, fancied that her wistful look, her occasional unresponsiveness to his caresses, proceeded from physical causes only, and would with them also pass away.

Thus December left them, and the dark foggy days of January flew apace. It was close upon February before Nan recovered from a severe cold which had assailed her about Christmas time, and left her very weak. For a week or two she was confined entirely to her room, and when she came downstairs she was forced for a time to keep to the warm atmosphere of one sitting-room. But one day, when February was close at hand, and the fogs had begun to clear away, she felt so much stronger that she resolved to make a new departure and show Sydney that she was really better. Instead of going into the drawing-room, therefore, she came down another flight of stairs, and resolved to establish herself in Sydney's study, ready to greet him on his return.

But Sydney was late, and she was rather weaker than she knew. She had her tea, and ordered lights to be brought in, and the curtains drawn, but still he did not come. Then she found that the lights hurt her eyes, and she had them extinguished—all but one small silver lamp which stood on a centre-table, and gave a very subdued light. Her maid came and put a soft fur rug over her, and at her orders moved a screen of carved woodwork, brought from an Arab building in Algeria, between her and the fire before she left the room. Thus comfortably installed, the warmth and the dimness of the light speedily made Nan sleepy. She forgot to listen for the sound of her husband's latchkey; she fell fast asleep, and must have remained so for the greater part of an hour.

The fire went down, and its flickering flame no longer illuminated the room. The soft light of the lamp did not extend very far, and the screen, which was tall and dark, threw the sofa on which Nan lay into deep shadow. The rug completely covered the lower part of her dress, and as the sofa stood between the wall and the fire-place on that side of the room furthest removed from the door, any one entering might easily believe that the room was empty. Indeed, unless Nan stirred in her sleep, there was nothing at all to show that she was lying on the couch.

Thus, when Sydney entered his study about a quarter to seven, with a companion whom he had found waiting for him on the door-step, it would have been impossible for him to conjecture the presence of his wife. He did not light another lamp. The first words of his visitor had startled him into forgetting that the room was dark—perhaps, as the interview went on, he was glad of the obscurity into which his face was thrown. And the sounds of the low-toned conversation did not startle Nan from her slumber all at once. She had heard several sentences before she realized where she was and what she was listening to, and then very natural feelings kept her silent and motionless.

"No, I've not come for money," were the first words she heard. "Quite a different errand, Mr. Campion. It is some weeks since I left you now, and I left you because I had a competency bequeathed to me by an uncle."

"Pleased to hear it, I am sure, Johnson," was Sydney's response. "As you mentioned the name of another person, I thought that you had perhaps had a letter from her——"

"I have seen her, certainly, several times of late. And I am the bearer of a message from her. She has always regretted that she took a certain sum of money from you when she first found out how you had deceived her; and she wishes you to understand that she wants nothing more from you. The fact is, sir, I have long been very sorry for her misfortunes, and now that I am independent, I have asked her to marry me and go with me to America."

There was a little silence. "I am quite willing to provide for the child," said Sydney, "and——"

"No," said the man, almost sternly; "hear me out first, Mr. Campion. She owes her misery to you, and, no doubt, you have always thought that money could make atonement. But that's not my view, nor hers. We would rather not give you the satisfaction of making what you call restitution. Milly's child—your child, too—will be mine now; I shall adopt it for my own when I marry her. You will have nothing to do with either of them. And I have brought you back the twenty pounds which you gave her when you cruelly deserted her because you wanted to marry a rich woman. In that parcel you will find a locket and one or two other things that you gave her. I have told her, and Miss Campion, who has been the best of friends to us both, has told her that she must henceforth put the memory of you behind her, and live for those whom she loves best."

"Certainly; it is better that she should," said Sydney.

"That is all I have to say," Johnson remarked, "except that I shall do my best to help her to forget the past. But if ever you can forget your own cruelty and black treachery and villainy towards her——"

"That will do. I will not listen to insult from you or any man."

"You should rather be grateful to me for not exposing you to the world," said Johnson, drily, as he moved towards the door. "If it knew all that I know, what would your career be worth, Mr. Campion? As it is, no one knows the truth but ourselves and your sister, and all I want to remind you of is, that if we forget it, and if you forget it, I believe there is a God somewhere or other who never forgets."

"I am much obliged to you for the reminder," said Sydney, scornfully. But he could not get back the usual clearness of his voice.

Johnson went out without another word, and a minute later the front door was heard to close after him. Sydney stood perfectly still until that sound was heard. Then he moved slowly towards the table, where an envelope and a sealed packet were lying side by side. He looked at them for a minute or two, and flung himself into an arm-chair beside the table with an involuntary groan of pain. He was drawing the packet towards him, when a movement behind the screen caused him to spring desperately to his feet.

It was Nan, who had risen from the sofa and stood before him, her face white as the gown she wore, her eyes wide with a new despair, her fingers clutching at the collar of her dress as if the swelling throat craved the relief of freedom from all bands. Sydney's heart contracted with a sharp throb of pain, anger, fear—he scarcely knew which was uppermost. It flashed across his mind that he had lost everything in life which he cared for most—that Nan would despise him, that she would denounce him as a sorry traitor to his friends, that the story—a sufficiently black one, as he knew—would be published to the world. Disgrace and failure had always been the things that he had chiefly feared, and they lay straight before him now.

"I heard," Nan said, with white lips and choking utterance. "I was asleep when you came, but I think I heard it all. Is it true? There was some one—some one—that you left—for me?—some one who ought to have been your wife?"

"I swear I never loved anyone but you," he broke out, roughly and abruptly, able neither to repel nor to plead guilty to the charge she made, but miserably conscious that his one false step might cost him all that he held most dear. To Nan, the very vagueness and—as she deemed it—the irrelevance of his answer constituted an acknowledgment of guilt.

"Sydney," she murmured, catching at the table for support, and speaking so brokenly that he had difficulty in distinguishing the words, "Sydney—I cannot pay this debt!"

And then she fell at his feet in a swoon, which at first he mistook for death.