ested. Don't worry about it. I--"

"The evening papers will tell me how it turns out," she said dully. "I
shall pray for you, Braden."

He turned on her savagely. "Don't do that!" he almost shouted. "I don't
want your support. I--" Other words surged to his lips but he held them
back. She drew back as if he had struck her a blow in the face. "I--I beg
your pardon," he muttered, and then strode across the room to thump
violently on the door to Lutie's bed-chamber. "Come out! I'm going. Can't
keep the nation waiting, you know."

Two minutes later Anne and Lutie were alone. The former, inwardly shaken
despite an outward appearance of composure, declined to remain for
luncheon, as she had done the day before. Her interest in Lutie and her
affairs was lost in the contemplation of a reviving sense of self-
gratification, long dormant but never quite unconscious. She had recovered
almost instantly from the shock produced by his violent command, and where
dismay had been there was now a warm, grateful rush of exultation. She
suspected the meaning of that sudden, fierce lapse into rudeness. Her
heart throbbed painfully, but with joyous relief. It was not rudeness on
his part; on the contrary he was paying tribute to her. He was dismayed by
the feelings he found himself unable to conquer. The outburst was the
result of a swift realisation that she still had the power to move him in
spite of all his mighty resolves, in spite even of the contempt he had for
her.

She walked to the Ritz. It was a long distance from George's home, but she
went about it gladly in preference to the hurried, pent-up journey down by
taxi or stage. She wanted to be free and unhampered. She wanted to think,
to analyse, to speculate on what would happen next. For the present she
was content to glory in the fact that he had unwittingly betrayed himself.

She was near the Plaza before the one great, insurmountable obstacle arose
in her mind to confound her joyous calculations. What would it all come
to, after all? She could never be more to him than she was at this
instant, for between them lay the truth about the death of Templeton
Thorpe,--and Templeton Thorpe was her husband. Her exaltation was short-
lived. The joy went out of her soul. The future looked to be even more
barren than before the kindly hope sprang up to wave its golden prospects
before her deluded eyes.

He would never look at the situation from her point of view. Even though
he found