had
never appreciated the goodness and worth of the man to whom she was
married until another woman--a "syren" she had been called in the
story--had stolen him from her, and with a wild flight of sentimental
imagination she already saw herself nicely fitted with the part.

She stole a little glance at Forrester, and a sigh shook her. What
happiness to be loved by such a man! Nothing that she had ever come
across in fiction could yield half such exquisite bliss.

To be his wife! To be with him always!... She lost herself in a world of
dreams.

Never once did she think now of his wealth, nor the advantages to be
gained from it. The man himself filled the picture of her thoughts. She
could have been equally happy with him in the dreary streets of Poplar
as in the luxury of the house at Hampstead.

How she had hated him at first! How she had sneered at Faith and tried
to set her against him, and now the scales had tipped the other way and
left her kneeling at his feet.

She was humble enough to know herself far below him, shrewd enough to
realize that, though she might find it heaven to be with him, his
happiness could never lie with her. She knew that she jarred on him in a
thousand ways, though lately she had recognized that he had subtly
changed towards her, was kinder, more tolerant, and for one wild moment
she allowed her thoughts to soar up into the blue skies of
impossibility.

King Cophetua had loved the Beggar Maid and been happy with her. Why
should the day of such miracles be at an end? She looked again at the
man beside her, and saw that his eyes were fixed on his wife with such a
look of sadness in them that she felt the tears rising to her own.

He loved Faith. Whatever he might say or pretend, Peg knew that he loved
her, and she gripped her hands beneath the cover of the rug. What a fool
Faith was! What a blind little fool, that she could laugh and be merry
with a man like Digby when this king amongst men was waiting for her to
look his way.

And the pendulum of Peg's emotions swung back again. After all, what was
her own happiness compared with his? And her thoughts flew to the latest
and as yet unfinished novelette lying on her bed at home in which the
Lady Gwendoline Maltravers had just dropped gracefully on to her
aristocratic knees to plead for her lover's honour with the brutal
squire who had sworn to ruin him.

"Take me! Body and soul I will be yours, if only you will spare him!
Spare the