"Rudyard did not think of killing you, I suppose," she went on, presently, with a bitter motion of the lips, and a sardonic note creeping into her voice.

"No, I thought of that," he answered, quietly, "as you know." His eyes sought the weapon on the table involuntarily. "That would have been easy enough," he added. "I should not have protested. I was not thinking of myself, or of Fellowes, but only of you-and Rudyard."

"Only of me and Rudyard!" she repeated with drooping eyes, that suddenly became alive again with feeling and passion and wildness. "Wasn't it rather late for that?"

The words stung him beyond endurance. He rose and leaned across the table towards her.

"At least I recognized what I had done, what you had done, and I tried to face it. I did not disguise it. My letter to you proves that. But nevertheless I was true to you. I did not deceive you ever. I loved you-ah, I loved you as few women have been loved! . . . But you, you might have made a mistake where Rudyard was concerned, made the mistake once, but if you wronged him, you wronged me infinitely more. I was ready to give up all, throw all else, all my life, my career, to the winds, and prove myself loyal to that which was more than all. Or I was willing to eliminate myself from the scene forever. I was willing to pay the price-any pricejust to stand by what was the biggest thing in my life. . . . But you were true to nothing -nothing-to nobody."

"If one is untrue-once-to anybody, why be true at all ever?” she said with an aching laugh, through which tears ran, though none dropped from her eyes. "If one is untrue to one, why not to-to a thousand?"

Again a mocking laugh burst from her. "Don't you see? One kiss, a wrong? Why not, then, a thousand kisses! The wrong came in the moment that the one kiss was given. It is the one that kills, not the thousand after."

"Ah yes, always so clever! A burst of indignation at his daring to suspect me even for an instant, and with a flourish into the fire, the evidence. Here is yours, your letter. Would you like to put it into the fire also?" she asked, and drew his letter from the folds of her dress.

"But, no, no, no-!" She suddenly sprang to her feet, and her eyes had a look of agonized agitation. "When I have learned every word by heart, I will burn it myself for your sake." Her voice grew softer, something less discordant came into it. "You will never understand. You could never understand me, or that letter of Adrian Fellowes to me, and that he could dare to write me such a letter. You could never understand it. But I understand you. I understand your letter. It came while I was-while I was broken. healed me, Ian. Last night I wanted to kill myself. Never mind why! You would not understand. You are too good to understand. All night I was in torture, and then this letter of yours-it was a revelation. I did not think that a man lived like you, so true, so kind, so mad. And so I wrote you a letter, ah, a letter from my soul! and then came down-to this-the end of all. The end of everything-forever."

It

"No, the beginning if you will have it .. Rudyard loves you. . She gave a cry of agony. "For God's sake-oh, for God's sake, hush! . . . You think that now I could . . . ' "Begin again with a new purpose." "Purpose! Oh, you fool! You fool!

...

You fool! You who are so wise sometimes! You want me to begin again with Rudyard.

And you do not want me to begin again— with you!"

He was silent, and he looked her in the eyes steadily.

"You do not want me to begin again with you, because you believe me-because you believed the worst from that letter, from Adrian Fellowes' letter. . . You believed, yet you hypnotized Rudyard into not believing. . . . But did you, after all? Was it not that he loves me, and that he wanted to be deceived, wanted to be forced to do what he has done? I know him better than you. . . . But you are righthe would have spoken to me about it if you had not warned him."

...

"Then begin again-"

"You do not want me any more." The voice had an anguish like the cry of the tragic music in "Electra." "You do not want what you wanted yesterday—for us together to face it all, Ian, you do not want it? You hate me!"

His face was disturbed with emotion, and he did not speak for a moment.

In that moment she became transformed. With a sudden tragic motion she caught the pistol from the table and raised it, but he wrenched it from her hand.

"Do you think that would mend any thing?" he asked, with a new pity in his heart for her. "That would only hurt those who have been hurt enough already. Be a little magnanimous. Do not be selfish. Give others a chance."

"You were going to do it as an act of unselfishness," she moaned. "You were going to die in order to mend it all. Did you think of me in that? Did you think I would or could consent to that? You believed in me, of course, when you wrote it. But did you think that was magnanimous-when you had got a woman's love, then to kill yourself in order to cure her! O God, how little you know!... But you do not want me now. You do not believe in me now. You abhor me. Yet if that letter had not fallen into Rudyard's hands we might perhaps have now been on our way to begin life again together! Does that look as though there was some one else that mattered-that mattered?"

He held himself together with all his power and will. "There is one way, and only one way," he said, firmly. "Rudyard loves you. Begin again with him." His

"The way of escape for us all, perhaps," he answered, with a light of determination in his eyes. "Good-bye!" he added, after a slight pause. "There is nothing more to say."

He turned to go, but he did not hold out his hand, nor even look at her.

"Tell me," she said, in a strange, cold tone, "tell me, did Adrian Fellowes-did he protect me? Did he stand up for me? Did he defend me?"

"He was concerned only for himself," Ian answered, hesitatingly.

Her face hardened. Pitiful, haggard lines had come into it in the last half-hour, and they deepened still more.

"He did not say one word to put me right?"

Ian shook his head in negation. "What did you expect?" he said.

She sank into a chair, and a strange cruelty came into her eyes, something so hard that it looked grotesque in the beautiful setting of her pain-worn, exquisite face.

So utter was her dejection that he came back from the door and bent over her.

"Jasmine," he said, gently, "we have to start again, you and I-in different paths. They will never meet. But at the end of the road-peace. Peace the best thing of all. Let us try and find it, Jasmine." He did

"He did not try to protect me. not defend me," she kept saying to herself, and was only half conscious of what Ian said to her.