s
clearness. How small she had been all along! Instead of waiting until
she heard the truth, she had let a wretched paragraph in a newspaper
inflame her wounded vanity, so that she gave her promise to Henry there
and then--putting the rope round her neck with her own hands. And
afterwards, instead of being brave and true, wounded vanity again had
caused her to tighten the knot. She remembered Henry's words when he
had implored her to tell him what were the actual wishes of her
heart--and how she had cut off all retreat by her answer. She remembered
all his goodness to her and how she had accepted it as her due, making
him care for her more and more as each day came.

"I have been a hopeless coward," she moaned, "a paltry, vain, hopeless
coward. I should have owned Michael was my husband immediately. Henry
could have got over it then, and now we might be happy--but it is too
late; there is nothing to be done----!"

Then she buried her face in her hands and sobbed brokenly. "Oh, my love,
my love--and I did not even now tell you all."

The clock struck one--supper would be beginning and she must go down. If
Michael could bear this agony and behave like a gentleman, she also must
play her part with dignity. Henry would be waiting at the bottom of the
stairs.

She went rapidly to her room and removed all traces of emotion, and then
she returned to the hall by the way she had come.

"I was growing quite anxious, dearest," Lord Fordyce told her, as he
advanced to meet her when she came down the stairs. "I feared you were
ill, and was just coming to find you. Let us go straight in to supper
now--you look rather pale. I must take care of you and give you some
champagne," and he placed her hand in his arm fondly and led her along.

[Illustration: "'He is often in some scrape--something must have
culminated to-night'"]

They found chairs which had been kept for them at a centre table, near
their hostess and Moravia, and here they sat down. Michael was nowhere
in sight, but presently he came in with one of the house-party, and Mrs.
Forster beckoned them to her--and thus it happened that he was again at
Sabine's side. His eyes had a reckless, stony stare in them, and he
confined his conversation to the lady he had taken in. And Henry, who
was watching him, whispered to Sabine:

"He is often in some scrape, Michael--something must have culminated
to-night. I have never seen him looking so haggard and pale."

Sabine drank d