ed in ordering me out of the house."

She answered him with a glance of divination. "I shall understand--but
you'll be sorry."

"I must take my chance of that." He moved away and tossed the books
about the table. Then he swung round and faced her. "Does Flamel care
for you?" he asked.

Her flush deepened, but she still looked at him without anger. "What
would be the use?" she said with a note of sadness.

"Ah, I didn't ask THAT," he penitently murmured.

"Well, then--"

To this adjuration he made no response beyond that of gazing at her
with an eye which seemed now to view her as a mere factor in an immense
redistribution of meanings.

"I insulted Flamel to-day. I let him see that I suspected him of having
told you. I hated him because he knew about the letters."

He caught the spreading horror of her eyes, and for an instant he had
to grapple with the new temptation they lit up. Then he said, with an
effort--"Don't blame him--he's impeccable. He helped me to get them
published; but I lied to him too; I pretended they were written to
another man... a man who was dead...."

She raised her arms in a gesture that seemed to ward off his blows.

"You DO despise me!" he insisted.

"Ah, that poor woman--that poor woman--" he heard her murmur.

"I spare no one, you see!" he triumphed over her. She kept her face
hidden.

"You do hate me, you do despise me!" he strangely exulted.

"Be silent!" she commanded him; but he seemed no longer conscious of any
check on his gathering purpose.

"He cared for you--he cared for you," he repeated, "and he never told
you of the letters--"

She sprang to her feet. "How can you?" she flamed. "How dare you?
THAT--!"

Glennard was ashy pale. "It's a weapon... like another...."

"A scoundrel's!"

He smiled wretchedly. "I should have used it in his place."

"Stephen! Stephen!" she cried, as though to drown the blasphemy on his
lips. She swept to him with a rescuing gesture. "Don't say such things.
I forbid you! It degrades us both."

He put her back with trembling hands. "Nothing that I say of myself can
degrade you. We're on different levels."

"I'm on yours, whatever it is!"

He lifted his head and their gaze flowed together.

XIV

The great renewals take effect as imperceptibly as the first workings of
spring. Glennard, though he felt himself brought nearer to his wife,
was still, as it were, hardly within speaking distance. He was
but laboriously acquiri