nd, but she was careful not to return his pressure. She would
not take her hand away from him; but she would show him no sign
of softness till he should have absolutely acquitted her of the
accusation he had made against her. "We are man and wife," he said
after awhile. "In spite of all that has come and gone I am yours, and
you are mine."

"You should have remembered that always, Louis."

"I have never forgotten it,--never. In no thought have I been untrue
to you. My heart has never changed since first I gave it you." There
came a bitter frown upon her face, of which she was so conscious
herself, that she turned her face away from him. She still remembered
her lesson, that she was not to anger him, and, therefore, she
refrained from answering him at all. But the answer was there, hot
within her bosom. Had he loved her,--and yet suspected that she was
false to him and to her vows, simply because she had been on terms
of intimacy with an old friend? Had he loved her, and yet turned her
from his house? Had he loved her,--and set a policeman to watch her?
Had he loved her, and yet spoken evil of her to all their friends?
Had he loved her, and yet striven to rob her of her child? "Will you
come to me?" he said.

"I suppose it will be better so," she answered slowly.

"Then you will promise me--" He paused, and attempted to turn her
towards him, so that he might look her in the face.

"Promise what?" she said, quickly glancing round at him, and drawing
her hand away from him as she did so.

"That all intercourse with Colonel Osborne shall be at an end."

"I will make no promise. You come to me to add one insult to another.
Had you been a man, you would not have named him to me after what you
have done to me."

"That is absurd. I have a right to demand from you such a pledge. I
am willing to believe that you have not--"

"Have not what?"

"That you have not utterly disgraced me."

"God in heaven, that I should hear this!" she exclaimed. "Louis
Trevelyan, I have not disgraced you at all,--in thought, in word, in
deed, in look, or in gesture. It is you that have disgraced yourself,
and ruined me, and degraded even your own child."

"Is this the way in which you welcome me?"

"Certainly it is,--in this way and in no other if you speak to me
of what is past, without acknowledging your error." Her brow became
blacker and blacker as she continued to speak to him. "It would be
best that nothing should be said,--not