orld on business that could not be delayed, while
she stayed behind to nurse her father who was ill.

It was then, with mysterious, uncanny suddenness, that the mischief had
begun. There had been something wild and untamed in Fanny
Bellair--something which had roused in Elwyn the hunter's instinct, an
instinct hitherto unslaked by over easy victories. And then Chance, that
great, cynical goddess which plays so great a part in civilized life,
had flung first one opportunity and then another into his eager,
grasping hands.

Fanny's father had died; and she had been lonely and in sorrow. Careless
friends, however kind, do not care to see much of those who mourn, but
he, Hugh Elwyn, had not been careless, nay, he had been careful to see
more, not less, of his friend's wife in this her first great grief, and
she had been moved to the heart by his sympathy.

It was by Elwyn's advice that Mrs. Bellair had taken a house not far
from London that lovely summer.

Ah, that little house! Elwyn could remember every bush, almost every
flower that had flowered, in the walled garden during those enchanted
weeks. Against the background of his mind every ornament, every odd
piece of furniture in that old cottage, stood out as having been the
silent, it had seemed at the time the kindly, understanding witnesses of
what had by then become an exquisite friendship. He, the man, had known
almost from the first where they too were drifting, but she, the woman,
had slipped into love as a wanderer at night slips suddenly into a deep
and hidden pool.

In a story book they would both have gone away openly together--but
somehow the thought of doing such a thing never seriously occurred to
Elwyn. He was far too fond of Bellair--it seemed absurd to say that now,
but the truth, especially the truth of what has been, is often absurd.

Elwyn had contented himself with stealing Bellair's wife; he had no
desire to put public shame and ridicule upon his friend. And fortune,
favouring him, had prolonged the other man's enforced absence.

And then? And then at last Bellair had come back,--and trouble began. As
to many things, nay, as to most things which have to do with the flesh
rather than the spirit, men are more fastidiously delicate than are
women. There had come months of misery, of revolt, and, on Elwyn's part,
of dulling love....

Then, once more, Chance gave him an unlooked-for opportunity--an
opportunity of escape from what had become to hi