cheat! I, whom he believes a
good and virtuous wife, have actually been kissed by a man who thought I
was the sort to permit an intrigue! Don't you see, that if I behaved as
though nothing wrong had happened, I would be putting myself on a par
with Judas?"

Having wrought herself up to the point of hysteria, she was not to be
reasoned with.

"How I wish I had never set foot in that dreadful place! It seems, after
all, that the devil is really in possession of it, and that disaster
overtakes people who enter there."

"Disaster invariably overtakes people who give the devil his chance,"
said Honor unable to resist a smile.

"I dare say you are right. I have been very foolish, for I had no idea
of the sort of man I was growing so intimate with. But he was truly
sorry, and tried afterwards in a hundred ways to show how he regretted
his behaviour. Indeed, I think, on the whole, he received quite a good
moral lesson for thinking most women are without any conscience," and
Joyce proceeded to relate the sequel of her story, which involved that
of the doctor's past.

"It is a most painful history," said Honor gravely.

"And he has never known home-life; his mother was a wicked woman, and
was divorced!"

"How pitiful!"

"It quite accounts,--doesn't it?--for his badness?"

"I don't think he is at all bad," Honor said unexpectedly. "He's been
badly hit and wants to hit back; that's about what it is. To him women
are all alike"--

"Not you!--he said you were, to his mind, the 'exception that proves the
rule.'" Joyce interrupted.

Honor coloured as she continued,--"And he has very little respect for
the sex. He requires to meet with some good, wholesome examples to set
him right, poor fellow!"

"He thinks the world of you, Honey!"

"Does he?" with an embarrassed laugh. "Then he takes a queer way of
showing it."

"That was your fault. You turned him down over Elsie Meek's case, and he
was too proud to plead for himself. But I have watched him, Honey, and
there isn't a thing you say or do he misses, when you and he are in the
same room."

"Your imagination!" Honor said uncomfortably. "You forget he has just
been trying to make love to you!"

"True. But he has never been _in love_ with me. It was sheer devilment.
Even I could tell that. Love is such a different thing. Ray loves me.
There is no mistaking it, for it is in his eyes all the time, and proved
in a thousand ways."

"Did Captain Dalton say much more ab