d which two people can say what they please. While the
reading was discussed they were silent. Their silence seemed to Glennard
almost cynical--it stripped the last disguise from their complicity. A
throb of anger rose in him, but suddenly it fell, and he felt, with
a curious sense of relief, that at bottom he no longer cared whether
Flamel had told his wife or not. The assumption that Flamel knew about
the letters had become a fact to Glennard; and it now seemed to him
better that Alexa should know too.

He was frightened at first by the discovery of his own indifference. The
last barriers of his will seemed to be breaking down before a flood of
moral lassitude. How could he continue to play his part, to keep his
front to the enemy, with this poison of indifference stealing through
his veins? He tried to brace himself with the remembrance of his wife's
scorn. He had not forgotten the note on which their conversation had
closed. If he had ever wondered how she would receive the truth
he wondered no longer--she would despise him. But this lent a new
insidiousness to his temptation, since her contempt would be a refuge
from his own. He said to himself that, since he no longer cared for
the consequences, he could at least acquit himself of speaking in
self-defence. What he wanted now was not immunity but castigation: his
wife's indignation might still reconcile him to himself. Therein lay
his one hope of regeneration; her scorn was the moral antiseptic that he
needed, her comprehension the one balm that could heal him....

When they left the dinner he was so afraid of speaking that he let her
drive home alone, and went to the club with Flamel.

IX

HE rose next morning with the resolve to know what Alexa thought of him.
It was not anchoring in a haven, but lying to in a storm--he felt the
need of a temporary lull in the turmoil of his sensations.

He came home late, for they were dining alone and he knew that
they would have the evening together. When he followed her to the
drawing-room after dinner he thought himself on the point of speaking;
but as she handed him his coffee he said, involuntarily: "I shall have
to carry this off to the study, I've got a lot of work to-night."

Alone in the study he cursed his cowardice. What was it that had
withheld him? A certain bright unapproachableness seemed to keep him at
arm's length. She was not the kind of woman whose compassion could be
circumvented; there was no