d sufficient strength to hold fast to her determination;
sufficient weakness to regret its power, and to long, wildly, weakly,
overwhelmingly for courage to throw everything to the winds, and snatch
her hour of joy.

Grizel had prophesied that the joy would be but of an hour, that
continued happiness was impossible under wrong conditions, and in her
heart Cassandra acknowledged the truth. Both Dane and herself had lived
their lives in an atmosphere of convention and morality; they were not
the stuff to defy the world, and live undaunted by snubs and chills.
The first wild rapture would be succeeded by mutual loneliness, mutual
remorse. On each would press a burden of responsibility for that other
dear wrecked life. Cassandra acknowledged the inevitability of regret,
in imagination lived through it, saw the cloud on Dane's face, felt the
cramp at her own heart, but even so... even so... they would have had
their hour! If the ship were sunk, there would be treasure saved from
the wreck. Better to sail forth for the high seas, facing dauntlessly
tempest and fire, than to spend the whole of life in a backwater,
anchored to a stone!

So the battle waged, hour after hour in weary repetition. Cassandra
fought vainly to sink the woman in the mother, and resurrect the old
thrills of devotion. She thought of the baby who had lain in her arms,
the little cooing, kicking cherub who had been the light of her eyes;
she thought of the first toddling steps, of the first coherent word, of
the first, the very first time that the little arms stretched out, of
the little dimpled baby splashing in a bath. One by one she recalled
the landmarks sweet to a mother's heart, but before them all, veiling
them like a cloud, stood the image of a stolid, freckled-face boy in an
Eton suit, a boy who signed his letters "Raynor," considered affection
bad form, and preferred to spend the "hols" visiting other fellows'
homes. It was not for the adorable baby of old, but for the Eton-suited
boy of to-day that she was to sacrifice her love!

Would he care? Would he really care? Guiltily she allowed her mind to
wander down the forbidden path. He would hear nothing. Bernard would
keep everything from him until--the divorce. The case would be
undefended, no savoury morsels would appear in the newspaper to whet the
appetites of the unclean, the vast majority of readers would not notice
its presence. Eventually, of course, something would have t