world when your husband engaged me."

"You were not brought up for such a life!"

"Not altogether," he admitted. "It suits me very well, though."

"Poor boy!" she murmured. "You, too, have had evil fortune. Perhaps
the black hand has shadowed us both."

"A man makes his own life," he answered, impulsively, "but you--you
were made for happiness. It is your right."

She glanced for a moment at the rings upon her fingers. Then she
looked into his eyes.

"I married Mr. Weatherley," she reminded him. "Do you think that if
I had been happy I should have done that? Do you think that, having
done it, I deserve to know, or could know, what happiness really
means?"

It was very hard to answer her. Arnold found himself divided between
his loyalty towards the man who, in his way, had been kind to him,
and the woman who seemed to be stepping with such fascinating ease
into the empty places of his life.

"Mr. Weatherley is very much devoted to you," he remarked.

A shadow of derision parted her lips.

"Mr. Weatherley is a very worthy man," she said, "but it would have