children to consider"--in some ways Mr. Dowson was as
primitive as Toni--"if you had, it would be different, but you've only
yourself to think about. This life doesn't suit you, Toni. It cramps
you, worries you. Oh, I heard all about that Badminton Club affair, and
everyone knows you don't hit it off with the bigwigs of the
neighbourhood."

"Who told you that?" For a moment Dowson quailed before her tone; but he
rallied bravely.

"Oh, what does it matter who told me? It's true, isn't it? Why, you look
different, Toni. You're not the lively, jolly, animated girl you used to
be--all smiles and jokes. Toni, you're paler, and thinner--you've grown
quiet, almost sad. It's because you're not happy--and--and I'd die for
your happiness any day."

His deadly earnestness could not fail to win response. Here at last was
a passion unveiled before Toni's wondering eyes; and all at once the
thing which had seemed impossible came down to the level of the things
which--sometimes--happen.

Here was a man who only asked to serve her; and if by accepting his
service she could free her husband from the chain which bound him, all
unwilling, to her, was it not the act of a coward to refuse?

It may be said, and with truth, that Toni's view of the matter was
perverted, distorted beyond all bounds of reason and of common sense. To
leave her husband, to whom in spite of all she clung with every fibre of
her being, for another man for whom she had not even the smallest atom
of affection, was surely the most insane, inexcusable action in the
world; and would after all only result in a negligible good, since the
insult paid, to the man she betrayed would quite outweigh any relief in
the freedom thus obtained.

Then, too, she would be wronging Leonard Dowson; since to go away with
him would lead him to suppose a degree of affection on Toni's part which
was in reality non-existent; but Toni was not thinking of Dowson in this
matter.

There is no woman so absolutely ruthless towards the mass of mankind as
the woman who loves one man completely. In this affair Owen was the only
man who counted in Toni's mind; and she thought of Leonard Dowson merely
as a convenient tool with which to effect her husband's release from the
position he apparently found unendurable. That the reckoning might come
afterwards, when Leonard should see himself as Toni saw him, she did not
pause to consider. Indeed, on this occasion her thoughts were so wild
and chaot