hen forbidden him to accept even an invitation to dinner from her
husband. And he remembered too the fierceness of her anger to him
when he told her of his love for Violet Effingham. "I must insist
upon it," she continued, "that you shall take me now as I really
am,--as your dearest friend, your sister, your mother, if you will.
I know what I am. Were my husband not still living it would be the
same. I should never under any circumstances marry again. I have
passed the period of a woman's life when as a woman she is loved;
but I have not outlived the power of loving. I shall fret about you,
Phineas, like an old hen after her one chick; and though you turn
out to be a duck, and get away into waters where I cannot follow
you, I shall go cackling round the pond, and always have my eye upon
you." He was holding her now by the hand, but he could not speak
for the tears were trickling down his cheeks. "When I was young,"
she continued, "I did not credit myself with capacity for so much
passion. I told myself that love after all should be a servant and
not a master, and I married my husband fully intending to do my duty
to him. Now we see what has come of it."

"It has been his fault; not yours," said Phineas.

"It was my fault,--mine; for I never loved him. Had you not told me
what manner of man he was before? And I had believed you, though I
denied it. And I knew when I went to Loughlinter that it was you whom
I loved. And I knew too,--I almost knew that you would ask me to be
your wife were not that other thing settled first. And I declared to
myself that, in spite of both our hearts, it should not be so. I had
no money then,--nor had you."

"I would have worked for you."

"Ah, yes; but you must not reproach me now, Phineas. I never deserted
you as regarded your interests, though what little love you had for
me was short-lived indeed. Nay; you are not accused, and shall not
excuse yourself. You were right,--always right. When you had failed
to win one woman your heart with a true natural spring went to
another. And so entire had been the cure, that you went to the first
woman with the tale of your love for the second."

"To whom was I to go but to a friend?"

"You did come to a friend, and though I could not drive out of my
heart the demon of jealousy, though I was cut to the very bone, I
would have helped you had help been possible. Though it had been the
fixed purpose of my life that Violet and Oswald should be man