se, did atone. I suppose he has had most of your money by now," said
Lady Elliston.

Amabel shut her eyes. "Wasn't he even sorry for me?" she asked.

Lady Elliston reflected and a glitter was in her eye; vengeance as well
as justice armed her. "He is not unkind," she conceded: "and he was
sorry after a fashion: 'Poor little girl,' I remember he said. Yes, he
was very tolerant. But he didn't think of you at all, unless he wanted
money. He is always graceful in his direct relations with people; he is
tactful and sympathetic and likes things to be pleasant. But he doesn't
mind breaking your heart if he doesn't have to see you while he is doing
it. He is kind, but he is as hard as steel," said Lady Elliston.

"Then you do not love him any longer," said Amabel. It was not a
question, only a farther acceptance.

And now, after only the slightest pause, Lady Elliston proved how deep,
how unflinching was her courage. She had guarded her illicit passion all
her life; she revealed it now. "I do love him," she said. "I have never
loved another man. It is he who doesn't love me."

From the black depths where she seemed to swoon and float, like a
drowsy, drowning thing, the hard note of misery struck on Amabel's ear.
She opened her eyes and looked at Lady Elliston. Power, freedom,
passion: it was not these that looked back at her from the bereft and
haggard eyes. "After twenty years he has grown tired," Lady Elliston
said; and her candour seemed as inevitable as Amabel's had been: each
must tell the other everything; a common bond of suffering was between
them and a common bond of love, though love so differing. "I knew, of
course, that he was often unfaithful to me; he is a libertine; but I was
the centre; he always came back to me.--I saw the end approaching about
five years ago. I fought--oh how warily--so that he shouldn't dream I
was afraid;--it is fatal for a woman to let a man know she is
afraid,--the brutes, the cruel brutes,"--said Lady Elliston;--"how we
love them for their fear and pleading; how our fear and pleading hardens
them against us." Her lips trembled and the tears ran down her cheeks.
"I never pleaded; I never showed that I saw the change. I kept him, for
years, by my skill. But the odds were too great at last. It was a year
ago that he told me he didn't care any more. He was troubled, a little
embarrassed, but quite determined that I shouldn't bother him. Since
then it has been another woman. I know her; I