* * * * *

‘Oh, poor Arthur—­poor Arthur!  And I did it!—­I did it!’

It was the cry of Eugenie’s inmost life.

And before she knew, she found herself enveloped in memories that rolled in upon her like waves of storm.  How long it had been before she would allow herself to see anything amiss with this marriage she had herself made!  And, indeed, it was only since Elsie’s illness that things dimly visible before had sprung into that sharp and piteous relief in which they stood to-day.  Before it, indications, waywardnesses, the faults of a young and petted wife.  But since the physical collapse, the inner motives and passions had stood up bare and black, like the ribs of a wrecked ship from the sand.  And as Eugenie had been gradually forced to understand them, they had worked upon her own mind as a silent, yet ever-growing accusation, against which she defended herself in vain.

Surely, surely she had done no wrong!  To have allowed Arthur to go on binding his life ever more and more closely to hers, would have been a crime.  What could she give him, that such a nature most deeply needed?  Home, wifely love, and children—­it was to these dear enwrapping powers she had committed him in what she had done.  She had feared for herself indeed.  But is it a sin to fear sin?—­the declension of one’s own best will, the staining of one’s purest feeling?

On her part she could proudly answer for herself.  Never since Welby’s marriage, either in thought or act, had she given Arthur’s wife the smallest just cause of offence.  Eugenie’s was often an anxious and a troubled conscience; but not here, not in this respect.  She knew herself true.

But from Elsie’s point of view?  Had she in truth sacrificed an ignorant child to her impetuous wish for Arthur’s happiness, a too scrupulous care for her own peace?  How ‘sacrifice’?  She had given the child her heart’s desire.  Arthur was not in love; but Elsie Bligh would have accepted him as a husband on any terms.  Tenderly, in good faith, trusting to the girl’s beauty, and Arthur’s rich and loving nature, Eugenie had joined their hands.

Was that in reality her offence?  In spite of all the delicacy with which it had been done, had the girl’s passion guessed the truth?  And having guessed it, had she then failed—­and failed consciously—­to make the gift her own?

Eugenie had watched—­often with a sinking spirit—­the development of a nature, masked by youth and happiness, but essentially narrow and poor, full of mean ambitions and small antipathies.  Arthur had played his part bravely, with all the chivalry and the conscience that might have been expected of him.  And there had been moments—­intervals—­of apparent happiness, when Eugenie’s own conscience had been laid to sleep.

Was there anything she might have done for those two people, that she had not done?  And Elsie had seemed—­she sadly remembered—­to love her, to trust her—­till this tragic breakdown.  Indeed, so long as she could dress, dance, dine, and chatter as much as she pleased, with her husband in constant attendance, Mrs. Welby had shown no open discontent with her lot; and if her caresses often hurt Eugenie more than they pleased, there had been no outward dearth of them.