of all autocracies," he
confidently declared, "the tyranny of weakness over strength!"

But Conscience Tollman only shook her head and smiled her unconverted
scepticism.

"Was it being true to such an ideal as that which made a certain king in
Israel send a certain captain into the front of the battle, because he
loved that captain's wife? I have listened to all this argument, because
I wanted you to feel sure that I wasn't afraid to hear it. But it can
never persuade me. And what have you to say of the trust of a husband
who accepts you in his house as a member of his family--without
suspicion?"

"I say that he has had his chance in all fairness and has failed. I say
that during the years of this ill-starred experiment you have fought
valiantly to make him win. I have, at least, not interfered by act or a
word. If he had not arranged this meeting I should never have done
so--and since he is responsible for our being brought together now he
must face the consequences."

"Then your attitude of last night was not just moon madness, after all?"

"I mean to penetrate your life as far as I can and to recognize no
inner sanctum from which I am barred. He is the usurper and my love is
not tame enough to submit. I am your lover because, though your words
deny me, your heart invites me. I'm coming to stay."

This time the woman's eyes did not kindle into furious or contemptuous
fires, but her voice was so calmly resolute that Stuart felt his own had
been a blustering thing.

"Then, Stuart, I'm still the puritan woman. I'm asking no quarter--and I
have no fears. Attack as soon and as often and as furiously as you wish.
I'm ready."

* * * * *

Eben Tollman noted that under the steady normality and evenness of his
wife's demeanor there stirred an indefinable current of nervousness,
since the evening of the tryst at the float and that the whole manner of
the visitor toward himself was tinctured with a new brusqueness, as
though the requirement of maintaining a cordial pretense were becoming
over tedious.

These were mere bits of chaff in a light breeze and he flattered himself
that it had taken his own perspicacity to detect them. A less capable
diagnostician might have passed them by unobserved. But to him they
marked a boundary.

Alone in his study, the husband ruminated upon these topics. Here he had
sanctuary and the necessity of a hateful dissimulation was relaxed. He
could then thr