agree with me that your husband is unworthy of you."

"Oh, please stop!" Philippa cried. "Stop at once!"

Lessingham came back to his place by her side. His voice was still
shaking, but it had grown very soft.

"Philippa, forgive me," he repeated. "If you only knew how it hurts to
see you like this! Yet I must speak. There is just once in every man's
lifetime when he must tell the truth. That time has come with me--I love
you."

"So does my husband," she murmured.

"I will only remind you, then, that he shows it in strange fashion,"
Lessingham continued. "He sets your wishes at defiance. He who should be
an example in a small place like this, is only an object of contempt in
the neighbourhood. Even I, who have only lived here for so short a time,
have caught the burden of what people say."

Philippa wiped her eyes.

"Please, do you mind," she begged, "not saying anything more about
Henry. You are only reminding me of things which I try all the time to
forget."

"Believe me," Lessingham answered wistfully, "I am only too content to
ignore him, to forget that he exists, to remember only that you are the
woman who has changed my life."

Philippa looked at him in something like dismay, rather like a child who
has started an engine which she has no idea how to stop.

"But you must not--you must not talk to me like this!"

His hand closed upon hers. It lay in his grasp, unyielding, cold, yet
passive.

"Why not?" he whispered. "I have the one unalterable right, and I am
willing to pay the great price."

"Right?" she faltered.

"The right of loving you--the right of loving you better than any woman
in the world."

There was a queer silence, only partly due, as she was instantly aware,
to the emotion of the moment. A door behind them had opened. Philippa's
quicker senses had recognised her husband's footsteps. Lessingham rose
deliberately to his feet. In his heart he welcomed the interruption.
This might, perhaps, be the decisive moment. Sir Henry was strolling
towards them. His manner and his tone, however, were alike good-natured.

"I was to order you into the billiard room, Mr. Lessingham," he
announced. "Sinclair has been sent for--a night route march, or some
such horror--and they want you to make a four."

Lessingham hesitated. He had a passionate inclination to face
the situation, to tell this man the truth. Sir Henry's courteous
indifference, however, was like a harrier. He recognised the inevitabl