tant, dubious; how well he knew the excited touch
on his sleeve, the breath half-drawn, the look that was a confidence and
an enigma; knew, too, the despondent droop of her eyes when the play was
done and it was all over; the tightening of her hand upon his arm, and
the shrinking of the whole tiny figure as they made their way out through
the crowd. She had spirit enough for anything; but her nerves were all on
edge--she was so easily tired, so easily startled.

Day after day, and night after night; it was evident that at this
rate she and Tyson were bound to see each other some time, somewhere.
Stanistreet wondered whether that thought had ever occurred to her. And
if they met--well, he could not tell whether he desired or feared to see
that meeting. In all probability it would put an end to doubt. Was it
possible that he had begun to love doubt for its own sake?

At last they met, as was to be expected, and Stanistreet was there to
see. He had taken her to the "Criterion" one night, and at the close of
the first act Tyson came into the box opposite theirs. He was alone. The
lights went up in the house, and he looked round before he sat down;
evidently he had recognized his wife, and evidently she knew it.
Stanistreet, watching her with painful interest, saw her body slacken
and her face turn white under its paint and powder.

"Either she cares for the beggar still, or else--she's afraid for her
life of him."

A horrible thought flashed across him. What if all the time she had
simply been making use of him as--as a damned stalking-horse for Tyson?
It might account for the enigmatic smiles, the swift transitions, the
whole maddening mystery of her ways. If he had been nothing to her but
the man who knew more about Tyson than anybody else? She had always had a
way of making him talk about Tyson, while he seemed to himself to be most
engagingly egotistic.

And he had once thought that Mrs. Nevill Tyson adored her husband for his
(Stanistreet's) benefit. There was this summer, and that moment in the
library at Thorneytoft--Mrs. Nevill Tyson was beyond him. And he had been
three years trying to understand her. He was a man of the world, and he
ought to have understood.

Ah--perhaps that was the reason of his failure!

He looked at her again. She had shifted her position, turned her back on
the stage; her eyes were lowered, fixed on the programme in her lap, but
they were motionless; she was not reading. One ungloved