horror in his, eyes as they stared
past his wife into the silent room.

Presently:

"She's dead," he said hoarsely. "Cynthia Farrow is dead."

CHAPTER XIV

BITTERNESS

"Dead!" Christine echoed Jimmy's hoarse word in a dull voice, not
understanding. "Dead!" she said again blankly.

He moved away from the door; he dropped into a chair and hid his face
in his hands.

There was a moment of absolute silence.

Christine stared at Jimmy's bowed head with dull eyes.

She was trying to force her brain to work, but she could not; she was
only conscious of a faint sort of curiosity as to whether Jimmy were
lying to her; but somehow he did not look as if he were. She tried to
speak to him, but no words would come.

Suddenly he raised his head; he was very pale. "Well?" he said
defiantly.

His eyes were hard and full of hurt; hurt because of another woman,
Christine told herself, in furious pain; hurt because the woman he had
really and truly loved had gone out of his life for ever.

She tried to say that she was sorry, but the words seemed to choke
her--she was not sorry; she was glad. She was passionately glad that
the beautiful woman whom she had at first so ardently admired was now
only a name between them.

"So you've no need to be jealous any more," said Jimmy Challoner, after
a moment.

No need to be jealous! There was still the same need; death cannot
take memory away with it. Christine felt as if the dead woman were
more certainly between them now, keeping them apart, than ever before.

The silence fell again; then suddenly Christine moved to the door.

Jimmy caught her hand.

"Where are you going? Don't be a little fool. It's ever so late; you
can't leave the hotel to-night."

"I am not going to stay here with you." She did not look at him; did
not even faintly guess how much he was longing for a kind word, a
little sympathy. He had had the worst shock of his inconsequent life
when, in reply to that urgent summons, he had raced round to Cynthia
Farrow's flat, and found that he was too late.

"She died ten minutes ago."

Only ten minutes! Jimmy had stared blankly at the face of the weeping
maid, and then mechanically taken his watch from his pocket and looked
at it. Only ten minutes! If he had not had to hang about for a taxi
he would have been in time to have seen her.

Now he would never see her again; as yet he had had no time in which to
analyse his feelings; he was num