prise hardly dulled by the acuter wonder of what he was
learning. He saw in a flash that if the family had ceased to consult
him it was because some deep tribal instinct warned them that he was no
longer on their side; and he recalled, with a start of comprehension, a
remark of May's during their drive home from Mrs. Manson Mingott's on
the day of the Archery Meeting: "Perhaps, after all, Ellen would be
happier with her husband."

Even in the tumult of new discoveries Archer remembered his indignant
exclamation, and the fact that since then his wife had never named
Madame Olenska to him. Her careless allusion had no doubt been the
straw held up to see which way the wind blew; the result had been
reported to the family, and thereafter Archer had been tacitly omitted
from their counsels. He admired the tribal discipline which made May
bow to this decision. She would not have done so, he knew, had her
conscience protested; but she probably shared the family view that
Madame Olenska would be better off as an unhappy wife than as a
separated one, and that there was no use in discussing the case with
Newland, who had an awkward way of suddenly not seeming to take the
most fundamental things for granted.

Archer looked up and met his visitor's anxious gaze. "Don't you know,
Monsieur--is it possible you don't know--that the family begin to doubt
if they have the right to advise the Countess to refuse her husband's
last proposals?"

"The proposals you brought?"

"The proposals I brought."

It was on Archer's lips to exclaim that whatever he knew or did not
know was no concern of M. Riviere's; but something in the humble and
yet courageous tenacity of M. Riviere's gaze made him reject this
conclusion, and he met the young man's question with another. "What is
your object in speaking to me of this?"

He had not to wait a moment for the answer. "To beg you, Monsieur--to
beg you with all the force I'm capable of--not to let her go back.--Oh,
don't let her!" M. Riviere exclaimed.

Archer looked at him with increasing astonishment. There was no
mistaking the sincerity of his distress or the strength of his
determination: he had evidently resolved to let everything go by the
board but the supreme need of thus putting himself on record. Archer
considered.

"May I ask," he said at length, "if this is the line you took with the
Countess Olenska?"

M. Riviere reddened, but his eyes did not falter. "No, Monsieur: I
a