n married--I"

"Don't let us talk about it, Owen; you don't understand how different
I am, how impossible--I--don't want to be unkind, you have been very
good to me always; and, understanding you as I seem to understand
you now, I am sorry you should have made such a bad choice, and that
I was not more satisfactory."

"But you are perfectly satisfactory, Evelyn. If I am satisfied, who
should have the right to grumble? The pain of losing you is better
than the pleasure of winning anybody else.... So you think, Evelyn,
you will never return to the stage?"

She did not answer, and, with dilated eyes, she looked through the
room till Owen turned, wondering if he should see anything; and he
was about to ask her if she saw the shadow again which she had
spoken of a while ago, but refrained from speaking, seeing that the
time was not one for questions.

"Evelyn," he said, "I will come to see you to-morrow. You are tired
to-night."

XV

"She will fall asleep again, and to-morrow will be quite well. But
what a near escape!" And he lingered with Merat, feeling it were
better she should know everything, yet loth to tell her that he had
known all the while that Ulick was trying to persuade Evelyn to go
away with him. But Merat must know that Ulick had been staying at
Berkeley Square.

"I suppose Monsignor comes here to see her?"

"He has been here, Sir Owen."

Owen would have liked to question her, but it did not seem honourable
to do so, and after a little talk about the danger of yielding to
religious impulses, he noticed that Merat was drifting from him,
evidently thinking such discussions useless.

On the landing he told her that Ulick had gone away with the opera
company, and that it was not likely that he and mademoiselle would
see each other again.

"But when Mr. Dean comes back to London?" Merat answered.

"Well, hardly even then; after a crisis like this she will not be
anxious to see him. You know, Merat, he was staying with me at
Berkeley Square; and I knew of his visits here, only it seemed to me
the only way to save her from religion was by getting her to go back
to the stage."

Owen took breath; he had told his story, or as much as was necessary,
omitting the fact that he was an accomplice in the love-making which
had led to attempted suicide.

"You don't think I was right?"

"Well, Sir Owen, you see, I don't think mademoiselle will ever go
back to the stage."

"You think that, Merat? Well,