ut and faced her.

"Damn them!" he cried, "from this day I forbid you to have anything to do
with them, do you hear. I forbid you! They're a set of confounded,
self-righteous hypocrites. Give them time! In all conscience they have
had time enough, and opportunity enough to know what our intentions are.
How long do they expect us to fawn at their feet for a word of
recognition? What have we done that we should be outlawed in this way by
the very people who may thank my family for their prosperity? Where would
Israel Simpson be to-day if my father had not set him up in business?
Without knowing anything of our lives they pretend to sit in judgment on
us. Why? Because you have been divorced, and I married you. I'll make
them pay for this!"

"No!" she begged, taking a step towards him. "You don't know what you're
saying, Hugh. I implore you not to do anything. Wait a little while! Oh,
it is worth trying!" So far the effort carried her, and no farther.
Perhaps, at sight of the relentlessness in his eyes, hope left her, and
she sank down on a chair and buried her face in her hands, her voice
broken by sobs. "It is my fault, and I am justly punished. I have no
right to you--I was wicked, I was selfish to marry you. I have ruined
your life."

He went to her, and lifted her up, but she was like a child whom
passionate weeping has carried beyond the reach of words. He could say
nothing to console her, plead as he might, assume the blame, and swear
eternal fealty. One fearful, supreme fact possessed her, the wreck of
Chiltern breaking against the rocks, driven there by her . . . .

That she eventually grew calm again deserves to be set down as a tribute
to the organism of the human body.

That she was able to breathe, to move, to talk, to go through the
pretence of eating, was to her in the nature of a mild surprise. Life
went on, but it seemed to Honora in the hours following this scene that
it was life only. Of the ability to feel she was utterly bereft. Her
calmness must have been appalling: her own indifference to what might
happen now,--if she could have realized it,--even more so. And in the
afternoon, wandering about the house, she found herself in the
conservatory. It had been built on against the library, and sometimes, on
stormy afternoons, she had tea there with Hugh in the red-cushioned
chairs beside the trickling fountain, the flowers giving them an illusion
of summer.

Under ordinary circumstances the sound of