st inevitably have landed them upon hidden rocks and wrecked
them pitilessly and in mid-career. He realized the danger. It took all
his manhood to face it; but two lives were trembling in the balance,
with nothing but his own past character and half of his inherited
tendencies to act as a fulcrum.

"I am afraid I don't quite understand you," he said.

"Then what are you doing here?" she returned sharply.

Thayer faltered. Then,--

"I thought perhaps you might be in need of help," he said quietly.

Her lip curled, and her slender wrists grew tense with the strain upon
them.

"For what? John and Patrick can take care of my husband. Mr. Lorimer
is--very ill; but we are quite capable of taking care of him. Why should
I need help?" She watched him in silent hostility. Then, as she saw the
sudden drawing of his lips, her mood changed. This was her friend, the
only friend who was near her and loyal to her. She must not hurt him
with her bitterness, lest he too should fail her, just as Lorimer
already had done. For months, she had unconsciously depended upon his
loyalty. Now she sought it consciously. "What is the use of keeping up
the pretence any longer?" she went on drearily. "You have been with us
day after day; you know how things are going; you know how my husband
has--that he has not always been himself." Even in her desperation, she
still chose her words guardedly. "Do you think I ever could have held
him?"

Slowly Thayer shook his head.

"No," he said in a low voice. "No; you never could have held him. It was
impossible."

"Then why didn't you warn me?" she burst out hotly.

He looked her straight in the eye.

"How could I?"

Her face flushed with the sudden understanding. Then the old dreary note
came back into her voice.

"And you have known from the first that it was all a mistake?"

"Yes."

"And you have let me suffer for it?"

"You are not the only one," he said, almost involuntarily.

Their eyes met, held each other, then dropped apart. Thayer drew a long,
slow breath.

"Mrs. Lorimer--Beatrix--"

She checked him with a gesture.

"Wait! You don't know it all, you can't know. You never knew Sidney
Lorimer as I did, for my Sidney Lorimer never really existed. I
idealized him, half-deified him. The Sidney Lorimer to whom I gave my
love, my very life, was one man; the Sidney Lorimer I married was quite
another. A woman can't love two men totally unlike each other, and yet I
am bound to him,