ry," said Hyde. His wide black eyes, devil-driven
beyond reticence, were riveted on Isabel's: apparently she no
longer existed for him except as the Chorus before whom he could
strip himself of the last rag of his reserve. "It brought it all
back. I was besotted when I married her, and I remembered all
that when I saw her dead. I forgot the other men. It was just as
it was when Arthur died. I couldn't do anything for him, and he
was in agony: he was shot through the stomach: it didn't seem to
matter then that he had robbed me of Lizzie. I couldn't even get
him a drop of water to drink. He died hard, did Rendell. It
wasn't true, what Lizzie said. I'd have given my life for him.
But I couldn't even make it easy for him to go."

"Poor Rendell," said Isabel softly, "and poor you! Oh, I'm so
sorry--I'm so sorry!"

She was not afraid of Hyde now nor shy of him, she felt only an
immense pity for him--this man who for no conceivable reason and
without the slightest warning had flung the weight of his
terrible past on her young shoulders. She longed to comfort him.
But he was inaccessibly far away, isolated, his voice rapid and
hard and clear, his manner normal: every nerve stripped bare but
still rigid. Inexperienced as she was, Isabel had a shrewd idea
of his immediate need. She took up the ring that Lawrence had
wrenched off and slipped it on his finger again.

"Don't do that," said Lawrence starting: "why do you do that?"

"But I shall love to see you wear it," said Isabel. "It's the
sign that you've forgiven them both."

"Have I?"

"Of course you have. You loved them too much not to forgive."

"It is true. But I hate myself for it," said Lawrence. "I hate
your etiolated Christian ethics. I don't believe in the
forgiveness of sins. The complaisant husband, O God! If I'd had
the spirit of a man, I should have shot Arthur the night--that
night--. . . .

"But you loved him," said Isabel, "and your wife too. You felt
revenge and hate and passion, but love was stronger: and love is
nobler than hate. They betrayed you, but you never betrayed
them. It wasn't unmanly of you, it was defeat and dishonour for
them, not for you, when Rendell, after that great wrong he had
done you, when you tried to make it easy for him to go."

"May I--?" said Lawrence.

He leaned his face down on her open palms, and she felt the tears
that she could not see. He could not control them, and indeed
after the first r