sy's letter, transmitted to his
hotel from the lawyer's office.

He read it carefully, two or three times over, weighing and scrutinizing
the guarded words. She proposed that they should meet to "settle
things." What things? And why should he accede to such a request? What
secret purpose had prompted her? It was horrible that nowadays, in
thinking of Susy, he should always suspect ulterior motives, be meanly
on the watch for some hidden tortuousness. What on earth was she trying
to "manage" now, he wondered.

A few hours ago, at the sight of her, all his hardness had melted, and
he had charged himself with cruelty, with injustice, with every sin of
pride against himself and her; but the appearance of Strefford, arriving
at that late hour, and so evidently expected and welcomed, had driven
back the rising tide of tenderness.

Yet, after all, what was there to wonder at? Nothing was changed in
their respective situations. He had left his wife, deliberately, and for
reasons which no subsequent experience had caused him to modify. She had
apparently acquiesced in his decision, and had utilized it, as she was
justified in doing, to assure her own future.

In all this, what was there to wail or knock the breast between two
people who prided themselves on looking facts in the face, and making
their grim best of them, without vain repinings? He had been right in
thinking their marriage an act of madness. Her charms had overruled his
judgment, and they had had their year... their mad year... or at least
all but two or three months of it. But his first intuition had been
right; and now they must both pay for their madness. The Fates seldom
forget the bargains made with them, or fail to ask for compound
interest. Why not, then, now that the time had come, pay up gallantly,
and remember of the episode only what had made it seem so supremely
worth the cost?

He sent a pneumatic telegram to Mrs. Nicholas Lansing to say that he
would call on her that afternoon at four. "That ought to give us time,"
he reflected drily, "to 'settle things,' as she calls it, without
interfering with Strefford's afternoon visit."

XXVIII

HER husband's note had briefly said:

"To-day at four o'clock. N.L."

All day she pored over the words in an agony of longing, trying to read
into them regret, emotion, memories, some echo of the tumult in her own
bosom. But she had signed "Susy," and he signed "N.L." That seemed
to put an abyss between t