ing else. His success, if ever he should succeed, would not
bring him what most men wanted of success--a companion and a home. He
had nothing to work for, and yet nothing to do except work. It was all
his own fault, he said; and blamed her all the more bitterly. He was
glad, he thought, that he had made it impossible for her to have a final
interview with him; and in his heart he could not forgive her for not
having overcome the obstacles to a meeting which he had set up in the
last frenzied days in New York.

"If I were of a revengeful disposition," he said to himself, "I should
ask nothing better than that she should marry Linburne"; and he concluded
that he was not revengeful because he found he did not want it. He made
up his mind after the most prolonged consideration that a woman such as
Christine exercised the maximum influence for evil; a thoroughly wicked
woman could not help inspiring distrust, but a nature like hers had
enough good to attach you and yet left you nothing to depend upon.

He read the papers, awaiting the announcement of her marriage, but found
no mention of her name except once, toward the end of May, a short
paragraph announcing that she had gone out of town for the season.

It was soon after he had read this that he came home earlier than usual
and let himself into his little flat. The day had been successful, a new
device in the engine was working well and the company had had a large
order from abroad. And as usual, with the prospect of success had come to
him a bitter sense of the emptiness of the future. He was thinking of
Christine, and when he turned the switch of the electric light, there she
was. She was sitting in a large shabby armchair, drawn close to the
window, so that she could look out at the river. She had taken off her
hat, and her hair shown particularly golden and her eyes looked brightly
blue in the sudden glare of light.

"You're dreadfully late," she said, quite as if she had charge of his
comings and goings. "I've been here hours and hours and hours."

Now that he actually saw her before him, it was neither love nor hate
that he felt, but an undefinable and overmastering emotion that seemed
to petrify him, so that he stood there quite silent with his hand on
the switch.

"Well," she went on, "aren't you surprised to see me?"

He bent his head.

"Can you guess why I have come?"

He shook his head.

She looked a little distressed at this. "Then perhaps I've made