ight. I
see you understand. Well, now, how am I to get my money--my damages?"
She turned away, and went quickly to an old bureau that had been her
uncle's. He watched her, exultant. It was all true, then. Dick Tanner had
been her lover, and Ellesborough knew nothing. He did not know whether to
be the more triumphant in her tacit avowal, or the more enraged by the
testimony borne by her acquiescence to her love for Ellesborough. He
hated her; yet he had never admired her so much, as his eyes followed her
stooping over the drawers of the bureau, her beautiful head and neck
in a warm glow of firelight.

Then, suddenly, he began to cough. She, hunting for her cheque-book, took
no notice at first. But the paroxysm grew; it shook the very life out of
him; till at last she stood arrested and staring-while he fell back in
his chair like a dead man, his eyes shut, his handkerchief to his lips.

"Shall I--shall I get you some brandy?" she said, coldly. He nodded
assent. She hurriedly looked for her keys, and went to a cupboard in the
kitchen, where Janet kept a half bottle of brandy for medical use if
needed.

He drank off what she brought--but it was some time before he recovered
speech. When he did it was in a low tone that made the words a curse:---

"That's your doing!"

Her only answer was a gesture.

"It is," he insisted, speaking in gasps. "You never showed me any real
love--any forbearance. You never cared for me--as you know I cared for
you. You told me so once. You married me for a home--and then you
deserted--and betrayed me."

There was a guilty answer in her consciousness which made her speak
without anger.

"I know my own faults very well. And now you must go--we can't either of
us stand this any more. Do you give me your solemn promise that you will
trouble me no more---or the man I am going to marry--if I do this for
you?"

"Give me a piece of paper--" he said, huskily.

He wrote the promise, signed it, and pushed it to her. Then he carefully
examined the self cheque "to bearer" which she had written.

"Well, I dare say that will see me out--and bury me decently. I shall
take my family down to the sea. You know I've got a little girl--about
three? Oh, I never told any lies about Anita. I've married her now."

Rachel stood like a stone, without a word. Her one consuming anxiety was
to see him gone, to be done with him.

He rose slowly--with difficulty. And the cough seized him again. Rachel
in a fe