“Already?”

“Already!  I am sorry, as of course in a few months’ time I should have been in office, and drawing a considerable salary.  As it is—­” he hesitated.

“Oh, I understand!” she said.  “Well, it doesn’t matter much.  I only have the house for six months furnished, and that’s paid for in advance.  John must go, and the horses can be sold.”

He looked at her in amazement.  Only a few months ago she had talked very differently.

“I—­I am not sure whether all that will be necessary,” he said.  “I can find a tenant for Blakely, and I daresay I can manage another hundred a year or so.  Only, of course, the large increase we had thought of will not be possible now.”

“No, I suppose not,” she answered, idly.

He moved in his chair uncomfortably.  He found her wholly incomprehensible.

“What a beast I must have seemed to you always,” she exclaimed, suddenly.

“Why?” he asked, pointlessly.

“I’ve sponged on you all my life, and you’re not a rich man, are you, Lawrence?  Then I dragged you into politics to supply me with the means to spend more money.  My claim on you was one of sentiment only, but—­I’ve made you pay.  No wonder you hate me!”

“Your claim on me, even to every penny I possess,” Mannering answered, “was a perfectly just one.  I have never denied it, and I have done my best.  And as to hating you, you know quite well it is not true!”

“Ah!” She rose suddenly to her feet, and before he had realized her intention she was on her knees by his side.  She caught at his hand and kept her face hidden from him.

“Lawrence,” she cried, “I was mad the other day.  It was all the pent-up bitterness of years which seemed to escape me so suddenly.  I said so much that I did not mean to—­I was mad, dear.  Oh, Lawrence, I am so lonely!”

Then the fear in his heart became a live thing.  He was dumb.  He could not have spoken had he tried.

“It was your coldness all these years,” she murmured.  “You were different once.  You know that.  At first, when the horror of what happened was young, I thought I understood.  I thought, as it wore off, that you would be different.  The horror has gone now, Lawrence.  We know that it was an accident, it might as well have been another as you.  But you have not changed.  I have given up hoping.  I have tried everything else, and I am a very miserable woman.  Now I am going to pray to you, Lawrence.  You do not care for me more.  Pretend that you do!  You cannot give me your love.  Give me the best you can.  Don’t despise me too utterly, Lawrence!  Pity me, if you will.  Heaven knows I need it.  And—­you will be a little kind!”

Her hands were clasped about his neck.  He disengaged himself gently.

“Blanche!” he cried, hoarsely, “I love another woman!”

“Are you engaged to her?”

“No!  Not now!”

“Then what does it matter?  What does it matter, anyhow?  It is not the real thing I am asking you for, Lawrence—­only the make-belief!  Keep the rest for her, if you must, but give me lies, false looks, hollow caresses, anything!  You see what depths I have fallen to.”