"She sprang rigid, as though I had whipped her across the face. Then,
'I knew it would come to this at the last,' she said; and even as she
spoke Robert Lovyes crossed the threshold.

"'Molly,' he said, and looked at her curiously. She stood singularly
passive, twisting her fingers. 'I hardly know you,' he continued. 'In
the old days you were the wilfullest girl I ever clapped eyes on.'

"'That was thirteen years ago,' she said, with a queer little laugh at
the recollection.

"He took her by the hand and led her into the parlour. I followed.
Neither Mrs. Lovyes nor Robert remarked my presence, and as for John
Lovyes, he rose from his chair as the pair approached him, stretched
out a trembling hand, drew it in, stretched it out again, all without
a word, and his face purple and ridged with the veins.

"'Brother,' said Robert, taking between his fingers half a gold coin,
which was threaded on a chain about Mrs. Lovyes' wrist, 'where is the
fellow to this? I gave it to you on the Gambia river, bidding you
carry it to Molly as a sign that I would return.'

"I saw John's face harden and set at the sound of his brother's voice.
He looked at his wife, and, since she now knew the truth, he took the
bold course.

"'I gave it to her,' said he, 'as a token of your death; and, by God!
she was worth the lie!'

"The two men faced one another--Robert smoothing his chin, John with
his arms folded, and each as white and ugly with passion as the other.
Robert turned to Mrs. Lovyes, who stood like a stone.

"'You promised to wait,' he said in a constrained voice. 'I escaped
six years after my noble brother.'

"'Six years?' she asked. 'Had you come back then you would have found
me waiting.'

"'I could not,' he said. 'A fortune equal to your own--that was what I
promised to myself before I returned to marry you.'

"'And much good it has done you,' said John, and I think that he meant
by the provocation to bring the matter to an immediate issue. 'Pride,
pride!' and he wagged his head. 'Sinful pride!'

"Robert sprang forward with an oath, and then, as though the movement
had awakened her, Mrs. Lovyes stepped in between the two men, with an
arm outstretched on either side to keep them apart.

"'Wait!' she said. 'For what is it that you fight? Not, indeed, for
me. To you, my husband, I will no more belong; to you, my lover, I
cannot. My woman's pride, my woman's honour--those two things are mine
to keep.'

"So she stood c