which he and Mrs. Pargeter would be supposed to
have been hero and heroine, would remain hidden--hidden, that is, from
everyone except those closely connected with her and with himself. His
own chief, the American Ambassador, would be informed of what had
happened, but he was a wise old man, there was no fear of indiscretion
in that quarter; but--yes, he, Vanderlyn, must face that fact--Tom
Pargeter would know the truth.

Vanderlyn's hidden abhorrence of _the other man_,--of the man whose
friend he had perforce compelled himself to be for so long, rose in a
great flood.

Tom Pargeter? The selfish, mean-souled, dull-witted human being, whose
huge fortune, coupled with the masculine virtues of physical courage and
straightness in matters of sport, made him not only popular but in a
small way a personage! Pargeter, no doubt, would suffer, especially in
his self-esteem; on the other hand, he, the husband, would feel that so
had his own conduct, his coarse infidelity, his careless neglect of his
wife, been fully condoned.

With a choking feeling of sharp pain, Vanderlyn suddenly remembered that
what Tom Pargeter knew now, poor Peggy's son would some day have to
know. For awhile, no doubt, the boy would be kept in merciful ignorance
of the tragedy, but then, when the lad was growing into manhood, some
blundering fool, or more likely some well-intentioned woman, probably
his aunt, Sophy Pargeter, would feel it her duty to smirch for him his
mother's memory....

Nay, that could not, that must never, be! Vanderlyn's head fell forward
on his breast; there came back, wrapping him as in a shroud, the awful
feeling of desolation, of life-long loss,--for he now knew, with
inexorable knowledge, what the future held for him.

It must be his fate to live, not die; he must live in order to safeguard
the honour of Margaret Pargeter, the beloved woman who had trusted him
wholly, not only in this, which was to have been their supreme
adventure, but during the whole of their long, almost wordless love. It
was for her sake that, she dead, he must go on living; for her sake he
must make what now, at this moment, seemed to be a sacrifice almost
beyond his power, for reason told him that he must leave her, and as
soon as possible, lying there dead--alone.

With tender, absent fingers he smoothed out the woollen folds to which
his face had been pressed; he slipped from her finger the thin gold
ring, and placed it once more where he had al