."

Elizabeth was silent for a moment. When she spoke again, there was a
change in her tone.

"You have failed, then."

"I did everything that could be done," Tavernake insisted eagerly. "I
am quite sure that nothing anybody could say would move Beatrice. She is
very decided indeed."

"I have another idea," Elizabeth remarked, after a brief pause. "She
will not come to me; very well, I must go to her. You must take me
there."

"I cannot do that," Tavernake answered.

"Why not?"

"Beatrice has refused absolutely to permit me to tell you or any one
else of her whereabouts," he declared. "Without her permission I cannot
do it."

"Do you mean that?" she asked.

"Of course," he answered uncomfortably.

There was another silence. When she spoke again, her voice had changed
for the second time. Tavernake felt his heart sink as he listened.

"Very well," she said. "I thought that you were my friend, that you
wished to help me."

"I do," he replied, "but you would not have me break my word?"

"You are breaking your word with me," she told him.

"It is a different thing," he insisted.

"You will not take me there?" she said once more.

"I cannot," Tavernake answered.

"Very well, good-bye!"

"Don't go," he begged. "Can't I see you somewhere for a few minutes this
evening?"

"I am afraid not," Elizabeth replied coolly.

"Are you going out?" he persisted.

"I am going to the Duke of York's Theatre with some friends," she
answered. "I am sorry. You have disappointed me."

She rang off and he turned away from the telephone booth into the
street. It seemed to him, as he walked down the crowded thoroughfare,
that some reflection of his own self-contempt was visible in the
countenances of the men and women who were hurrying past him. Wherever
he looked, he was acutely conscious of it. In his heart he felt the
bitter sense of shame of a man who wilfully succumbs to weakness. Yet
that night he made his efforts.

For four hours he sat in his lonely rooms and worked. Then the unequal
struggle was ended. With a groan he caught up his hat and coat and
left the house. Half an hour later, he was among the little crowd of
loiterers and footmen standing outside the doors of the Duke of York's
Theatre.

It was still some time before the termination of the performance. As the
slow minutes dragged by, he grew to hate himself, to hate this new
thing in his life which had torn down his everyday standards, which had
c