re you good to
him?"

"No--no." She shook her head remorsefully. "I wish I had been."

Tyson knitted his brows and looked at her. He had not quite made up his
mind.

"Do you know, I don't altogether believe in your refreshing _naeivete_.
Stanistreet is not 'good' to pretty women for nothing. I know, and you
know, that a woman who has been seen with him as you apparently have
been, is not supposed to have a character to lose."

She rose to her feet and faced him. "How could you? Oh, how could you?"

He shrank from her, without the least attempt to conceal his repulsion.
"If you look in the glass you'll see."

She turned mechanically and saw the reflection of her face, all flushed
as it was and distorted, the eyes fierce with passion. It was like the
sudden leaping forth of her soul; and Mrs. Nevill Tyson's soul, after
three days' intercourse with her husband's, was not a thing to trust
implicitly. Without sinning it seemed unconsciously to reflect his sin.
I can not tell you how that was; marriage is a great mystery.

She understood him, though imperfectly; she understood many things
now. Oh, he was right--she looked the part; no wonder that he hated
her. She sat down and covered her face with her hands, as if to shut
out that momentary vision of herself. Herself and not herself. What she
saw was something that had never been. But it was something that might
be--herself, as Tyson alone had power to make her. All this came to her
as an unexplained, confused terror, a trouble of the nerves; there was no
reasoning, no idea; it was all too new.

But if she did not understand her own misery, she understood vaguely what
he had said to her. She got up and went to her writing-table where a
letter lay folded, ready for its envelope. She gave it to him without
a word.

"Do you mean me to read this?" he asked.

"Yes; if you like." She answered without looking at him; apparently she
was absorbed in addressing her envelope.

He opened the letter gingerly, and read in his wife's schoolgirl
handwriting:--

"Dear Louis,--It's awfully good of you but I'm afraid I can't go with you
to the 'Lyceum' to-morrow night so I return the ticket with many thanks,
in case you want to give it to somebody else. Nevill has come home--why
of course you saw him--and I am so happy and I want all my time for him.

"I thought you'd like to know this. I'm sure he will be delighted to see
you whenever you like to call.--Yours sincerely,

"Mo