“I ask you not to come down—­I cannot bear it.  I will see you to-morrow morning, before I go, if you will come to my sitting-room at twelve.”

That was all.

And, more passionately wretched than she had ever been in her life, she went to bed.

She used the whole strength of her will to control herself next morning.  She must not show any emotion, no matter how she should feel.  It was not that she had any pride left, or would not have willingly fallen into his arms; but she felt no woman could do so, unsolicited and when a man plainly showed her he held her in disdain.

So it was, with both their hearts breaking, they met in the sitting-room.

“I have only ten minutes,” he said constrainedly.  “The motor is at the door.  I have to go round by Bury St. Edmunds; it is an hour out of my way, and I must be in London at five o’clock, as I leave for Paris by the night mail.  Will you sit down, please, and I will be as brief as I can.”

She fell, rather than sank, into a chair.  She felt a singing in her ears; she must not faint—­she was so very weak from her recent illness.

“I have arranged that you stay here at Wrayth until you care to make fresh arrangements for yourself,” he began, averting his eyes, and speaking in a cold, passionless voice.  “But if I can help it, after I leave here to-day I will never see you again.  There need be no public scandal; it is unnecessary that people should be told anything; they can think what they like.  I will explain to my mother that the marriage was a mistake and we have agreed to part—­that is all.  And you can live as you please and I will do the same.  I do not reproach you for the ruin you have brought upon my life.  It was my own fault for marrying you so heedlessly.  But I loved you so—!” And then his voice broke suddenly with a sob, and he stretched out his arms wildly.

“My God!” he cried, “I am punished!  The agony of it is that I love you still, with all my soul—­even though I saw them with my own eyes—­your lover and—­your child!”

Here Zara gave a stifled shriek, and, as he strode from the room not daring to look at her for fear of breaking his resolution, she rose unsteadily to her feet and tried to call him.  But she gasped and no words would come.  Then she fell back unconscious in the chair.

He did not turn round, and soon he was in the motor and gliding away as though the hounds of hell were after him, as, indeed, they were, from the mad pain in his heart.

And when Zara came to herself it was half an hour later, and he was many miles away.

She sat up and found Jake licking her hands.

Then remembrance came back.  He was gone—­and he loved her even though he thought her—­that!

She started to her feet.  The blood rushed back to her brain.  She must act.