came
deprecatory.

"I can't keep things straight now. It is not the same," she said.

Mrs. Hastings asked if Hawtrey was in, and hearing that he was turned
to Agatha. "Go along and talk to him. I've something to say to Mrs.
Nansen," she said.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE PRIOR CLAIM.

It was with confused feelings among which a sense of repugnance
predominated that Agatha walked towards Hawtrey's room. She was not
one of the women who take pleasure in pointing out another person's
duty, for while she had discovered that this task is apparently an easy
one to some people she was quite aware that a duty usually looks much
more burdensome when it is laid upon one's self. Indeed, she was
conscious just then that one might be shortly thrust upon her which she
would find it very hard to bear, and she became troubled with a certain
compunction as she remembered how she had of late persistently driven
all thought of it out of her mind.

There was no doubt that she was still pledged to Gregory, and that she
had loved him once. Both facts must be admitted, and it seemed to her
that if he insisted she must marry him. Deep down in her there was an
innate sense of right and honesty, and she realised that the fact that
he was not the man she had once imagined him to be did not release her.
In the meanwhile, it was clear that if he was about to commit a cruel
and unjustifiable action she was the one person of all others whose
part it was to restrain him.

The colour was a little plainer in her face than usual when she quietly
entered the room where he lay, pipe in hand, in a lounge chair, and,
for it seemed that he did not immediately notice her, his attitude of
languid ease irritated her. There were, as she had seen, several
things which should evidently have had some claim on his attention
outside. A litter of letters and papers lay upon a little table at his
side, but the fact that he could not reach them as he lay was
suggestive. Then he rose, and came forward with outstretched hand.

[Illustration: "It seemed that he did not immediately notice her."]

"I didn't hear you," he said. "This is a pleasure I scarcely
anticipated."

Agatha sat down in the chair he drew out for her near the stove, and he
seemed to notice that she glanced at the papers on the table, for he
laughed.

"Bills, and things of that kind. They've been worrying me for a week
or two," he said. Then he seized the litter, and bundling it toge