shame blazed in me
together. I faced him, black and bitter, and he was not only to me
Jane's husband, the suspicious, narrow-minded ass to whom she was tied,
but, much more, the Potterite, the user of cant phrases, the ignorant
player to the gallery of the Pinkerton press, the fool who had so
little sense of his folly that he disputed on facts with the experts
who wrote for the _Weekly Fact_. In him, at that moment, I saw all the
Potterism of this dreadful world embodied, and should have liked to
have struck it dead.

'What exactly,' I asked him, 'do you mean by that?'

He smiled.

Jane yawned. 'I'm going to take my things off,' she said, and went out of
the room and up the next flight of stairs to her bedroom. It was her
contemptuous way of indicating that the situation was, in fact, no
situation at all, but merely a rather boring conversation.

As, though I appreciated her attitude, I couldn't agree with her, I
repeated my question.

Hobart added to his smile a shrug.

PART III:

TOLD BY LEILA YORKE

CHAPTER I

THE TERRIBLE TRAGEDY ON THE STAIRS

1

Love and truth are the only things that count. I have often thought that
they are like two rafts on the stormy sea of life, which otherwise would
swamp and drown us struggling human beings. If we follow these two stars
patiently, they will guide us at last into port. Love--the love of our
kind--the undying love of a mother for her children--the love, so
gloriously exhibited lately, of a soldier for his country--the eternal
love between a man and a woman, which counts the world well lost--these
are the clues through the wilderness. And Truth, the Truth which cries
in the market-place with a loud voice and will not be hid, the Truth
which sacrifices comfort, joy, even life itself, for the sake of a clear
vision, the Truth which is far stranger than fiction--this is Love's
very twin.

For Love's sake, then, and for Truth's, I am writing this account of a
very sad and very dreadful period in the lives of those close and dear to
me. I want to be very frank, and to hide nothing. I think, in my books, I
am almost too frank sometimes; I give offence, and hurt people's egotism
and vanity by speaking out; but it is the way I have to write; I cannot
soften down facts to please. Just as I cannot restrain my sense of the
ridiculous, even though it may offend those who take themselves
solemnly; I am afraid I am naughty about such people, and often give
of