leave her.  Now there was cause—­cause enough.  She could only see the enormity of her guilt with his eyes, so completely did he dominate her.  That a thousand circumstances had mitigated her action, had goaded her, as the unwilling beast is driven through the noise and smoke of battle, until, in the fury of fear, it plunges headlong towards the murderous cannonade—­that these things should be taken into account did not enter her conception of the situation.  She had wronged him.  That was all she felt.  And now, clutching his hand, raising it to her lips, drenching it with her tears and kisses, she begged his forgiveness, humbling herself down to the very dust.

He took his hand away.  “What’s the good of talking about forgiveness?” he said unemotionally.  “The thing’s done.  I was not the only person who saw you.”

“Your sister?”

“Yes; she pointed you out first.”

“I might have guessed that!” Sally exclaimed bitterly.

“Why?”

“Because she hates me.  She knew it ’ud make you angry if you saw me there.”

“Oh, that’s nonsense!  Why should she hate you?”

“Why, because she wants you for that other girl.  And you do care for her now, don’t you—­don’t you?”

Traill turned away with annoyance.  “We’ll leave that matter alone,” he said.  “I haven’t the slightest intention of discussing it.  To-morrow morning I shall see about letting my rooms.  According to the terms of the settlement I drew out last night, you retain these—­rent free—­to the expiration of the lease.  That’s three years.  But you mayn’t sub-let.”

Sub-let!  He could talk about sub-letting!  The irony of it dragged a laugh through her lips.

“Do you think I shall want to sub-let?” she said stridently.  “Do you think I shall care what I do, where I live, how I live?”

“You’ll be a fool if you don’t,” he remarked.

The hysterical note in her voice had jarred through him.  Once before in his life he had had a woman screaming about his ears.  There was no desire in his mind to relish the enjoyment of it again.  He turned slowly towards the door.  This was the worst of women.  A man’s relations with them were bound to end something after this fashion.  In common with most men, he shared a hatred of that termination of all intimacies which one calls a scene.

But, really, he had no cause for apprehension.  The tears now were streaming down her face, sobs were choking her, convulsive shudderings that shook her body in a merciless grip.  Her spirit was utterly broken.  No worse could happen to her now.  But through all her misery, she could still think first of him.  That tentative drawing away, the hand stretching out for the door, she knew the meaning of that; she saw that he had had enough—­enough of her weeping, enough of her despair.  Just as when, watching the fight, she had struggled against her weakness lest it should spoil his pleasure, so