n July," answered
the woman. "I received the news from the Foreign Office only a fortnight
ago."

An ugly look came into his eyes--the look of a cornered creature fighting
for its life. "Why have you followed me here? Why do I find you here
alone with her? What have you told her?"

The woman shrugged her shoulders. "Only the truth."

"All the truth?" he demanded--"all? Ah! be just. Tell her it was not
all my fault. Tell her all the truth."

"What would you have me tell her? That I played Potiphar's wife to your
Joseph?"

"Ah, no! The truth--only the truth. That you and I were a pair of idle
fools with the devil dancing round us. That we played a fool's game, and
that it is over."

"Is it over? Dick, is it over?" She flung her arms towards him; but he
threw her from him almost brutally. "The man is dead, I tell you. His
folly and his sin lie dead with him. I have nothing to do with you, nor
you with me."

"Dick!" she whispered. "Dick, cannot you understand? I must speak with
you alone."

But they did not understand, neither the man nor the child.

"Dick, are you really dead?" she cried. "Have you no pity for me? Do
you think that I have followed you here to grovel at your feet for mere
whim? Am I acting like a woman sane and sound? Don't you see that I am
mad, and why I am mad? Must I tell you before her? Dick--" She
staggered towards him, and the fine cloak slipped from her shoulders; and
then it was that Tommy changed from a child into a woman, and raised the
other woman from the ground with crooning words of encouragement such as
mothers use, and led her to the inner room. "Do not go," she said,
turning to Dick; "I shall be back in a few minutes."

He crossed to one of the windows against which beat the City's roar, and
it seemed to him as the throb of passing footsteps beating down through
the darkness to where he lay in his grave.

She re-entered, closing the door softly behind her. "It is true?" she
asked.

"It can be. I had not thought of it."

They spoke in low, matter-of-fact tones, as people do who have grown
weary of their own emotions.

"When did he go away--her husband?"

"About--it is February now, is it not? About eighteen months ago."

"And died just eight months ago. Rather conveniently, poor fellow."

"Yes, I'm glad he is dead--poor Lawrence."

"What is the shortest time in which a marriage can be arranged?"

"I do not know," he answered listlessly