l keep an eye on its future--." He stopped, for his
sister's hands had fallen. She was gazing at him, still dully--for it
seemed that nothing could strike any excitement from her--but with a
curious look, a look that again made him feel as if she were much older
than he.

"Never," she said.

"Never what?" Bertram asked. "You mean you won't part from the child?"

"Never; never," she repeated.

"But Amabel," with cold patience he urged; "if Hugh insists.--My poor
girl, you have made your bed and you must lie on it. You can't expect
your husband to give this child--this illegitimate child--his name. You
can't expect him to accept it as his child."

"No; I don't expect it," she said.

"Well, what then? What's your alternative?"

"I must go away with the child."

"I tell you, Amabel, it's impossible," Bertram in his painful anxiety
spoke with irritation. "You've got to consider our name--my name, my
position, and your husband's. Heaven knows I want to be kind to you--do
all I can for you; I've not once reproached you, have I? But you must be
reasonable. Some things you must accept as your punishment. Unless Hugh
is the most fantastically generous of men you'll have to part from the
child."

She sat silent.

"You do consent to that?" Bertram insisted.

She looked before her with that dull, that stupid look. "No," she
replied.

Bertram's patience gave way, "You are mad," he said. "Have you no
consideration for me--for us? You behave like this--incredibly, in my
mother's daughter--never a girl better brought up; you go off with
that--that bounder;--you stay with him for a week--good
heavens!--there'd have been more dignity if you'd stuck to him;--you
chuck him, in one week, and then you come back and expect us to do as
you think fit, to let you disappear and everyone know that you've
betrayed your husband and had a child by another man. It's mad, I tell
you, and it's impossible, and you've got to submit. Do you hear? Will
you answer me, I say? Will you promise that if Hugh won't consent to
fathering the child--won't consent to giving it his name--won't consent
to having it, as his heir, disinherit the lawful children he may have by
you--good heavens, I wonder if you realize what you are asking!--will
you promise, I say, if he doesn't consent, to part from the child?"

She did look rather mad, her brother thought, and he remembered, with
discomfort, that women, at such times, did sometimes lose their reason.
He