He strove to think what was passing behind that forehead.  He tried to read her soul in the rounded temples, the bright, nervous eyes.  His and her understanding of life and the mystery of life were as wide apart as the earth and the moon, and he could but stare wondering.  No inkling of the truth reached him.  As he strove to understand her mind he grew irritated, and turned against that shadow religion which had always separated them.  Without knowing why—­almost in spite of himself—­he began to argue with her.  He reminded her of her inconsistencies.  She had always said that a lover was much more exciting than a husband.  If it had not been for her religion, he did not believe they would have thought of marriage, they would have gone on to the end as they had begun.  The sound of his voice entered her ears, but the meaning of the words did not reach her brain, and when she had said that she had come to him not on account of Ulick, but on account of her conscience, she sat perplexed, trying to discover if she had told the truth.

“You’re not listening, Evelyn.”

“Yes, I am, Owen.  You said that I had always said that a lover was much more exciting than a husband.”

“If so, why then—­”

They stared blankly at each other.  Everything had been said.  They were engaged to be married.  What was the use of further argument?  She mentioned that it was getting late, and that Lady Duckle was waiting for her.

“She will tell her first,” he thought, “and she’ll tell Lady Ascott.  They’ll all be talking of it at supper.  ‘So Owen has gone off at last,’ they’ll say.  I’ll hear of it at the club to-morrow.”

“I wonder what Lady Ascott will think?” he said, as he put her into the carriage.

“I don’t know....  I shall not go to the ball.  Tell him to take me home.”

She lay back in the blue shadows of the brougham, striving to come to terms with herself, to arrive at some plain conclusion.  It seemed to her that she had been animated by an honest and noble purpose.  She had gone to Owen in the intention of marrying him if he wished to marry her, because it had seemed to her that it was her duty to marry him.  But everything had turned out the very opposite of what she had intended, and looking back upon the hour she had spent with him, it seemed to her that she had certainly deceived him.  She certainly had deceived herself.

She could not believe that she was going to marry Owen.  She felt that it was not to be, and before the presentiment her her soul paused.  She asked herself why she felt that it was not to be.  There was no reason; but she felt quite clear on the point, and could not combat the clear conviction.  She began thinking the obvious drama—­Owen discovering her with Ulick, declining ever to see her again, her suicide or his, etc.  But she could not believe that Owen would decline ever to see her again even if—­but she was not going to go wrong with Ulick, there was no use supposing such things, And again her thoughts paused, and like things frightened by the dark, withdrew silently, not daring to look further.