tter from Duplain, definitely
announcing his resolve not to remain at Westmore. A year earlier
Amherst, deeply moved by the letter, would have given it to his wife in
the hope of its producing the same effect on her. He knew better now--he
had learned her instinct for detecting "business" under every serious
call on her attention. His only hope, as always, was to reach her
through the personal appeal; and he put before her the fact of Duplain's
withdrawal as the open victory of his antagonists. But he saw at once
that even this could not infuse new life into the question.

"If I go back he'll stay--I can hold him, can gain time till things take
a turn," he urged.

"Another? I thought they were definitely settled," she objected
languidly.

"No--they're not; they can't be, on such a basis," Amherst broke out
with sudden emphasis. He walked across the room, and came back to her
side with a determined face. "It's a delusion, a deception," he
exclaimed, "to think I can stand by any longer and see things going to
ruin at Westmore! If I've made you think so, I've unconsciously deceived
us both. As long as you're my wife we've only one honour between us, and
that honour is mine to take care of."

"Honour? What an odd expression!" she said with a forced laugh, and a
little tinge of pink in her cheek. "You speak as if I had--had made
myself talked about --when you know I've never even looked at another
man!"

"Another man?" Amherst looked at her in wonder. "Good God! Can't you
conceive of any vow to be kept between husband and wife but the
primitive one of bodily fidelity? Heaven knows I've never looked at
another woman--but, by my reading of our compact, I shouldn't be keeping
faith with you if I didn't help you to keep faith with better things.
And you owe me the same help--the same chance to rise through you, and
not sink by you--else we've betrayed each other more deeply than any
adultery could make us!"

She had drawn back, turning pale again, and shrinking a little at the
sound of words which, except when heard in church, she vaguely
associated with oaths, slammed doors, and other evidences of
ill-breeding; but Amherst had been swept too far on the flood of his
indignation to be checked by such small signs of disapproval.

"You'll say that what I'm asking you is to give me back the free use of
your money. Well! Why not? Is it so much for a wife to give? I know you
all think that a man who marries a rich woman forfe