“You do not know what an injury you are doing her,” she continued gravely.  “You cannot know how people are talking about it?”

“Oh, don’t I?” he laughed.  Then, as out of the tail of his eye he saw her troubled face, he stopped and made his face grave.  “And you think I am injuring her!” She did notice the covert cynicism.

“I am sure you are—­unwittingly.  You do not know how unhappy she is.”

An expression very like content stole into his dark eyes.

Lois continued: 

“She has not been wise.  She has been foolish and unyielding and—­oh, I hate to say anything against her, for she has been very kind to me!—­She has allowed others to make trouble between her and her husband; but she loves him dearly for all that—­and—­”

“Oh, she does!  You think so!” said Wickersham, with an ugly little gleam under his half-closed lids and a shrewd glance at Lois.

“Yes.  Oh, yes, I am sure of it.  I know it.  She adores him.”

“She does, eh?”

“Yes.  She would give the world to undo what she has done and win him back.”

“She would, eh?” Again that gleam in Wickersham’s dark eyes as they slanted a glance at the girl’s earnest face.

“I think she had no idea till—­till lately how people talked about her, and it was a great shock to her.  She is a very proud woman, you know?”

“Yes,” he assented, “quite proud.”

“She esteems you—­your friendship—­and likes you ever so much, and all that.”  She was speaking rapidly now, her sober eyes on Wickersham’s face with an appealing look in them.  “And she doesn’t want to do anything to—­to wound you; but I think you ought not to come so often or see her in a way to make people talk—­and I thought I’d say so to you.”  A smile that was a plea for sympathy flickered in her eyes.

Wickersham’s mind had been busy.  This explained the change in Louise Wentworth’s manner of late—­ever since he had made the bold declaration of his intention to conquer her.  Another idea suggested itself.  Could the girl be jealous of his attentions to Mrs. Wentworth?  He had had women play such a part; but none was like this girl.  If it was a game it was a deep one.  He took his line, and when she ended composed his voice to a low tone as he leant toward her.

“My dear girl, I have listened to every word you said.  I am shocked to hear what you tell me.  Of course I know people have talked about me,—­curse them! they always will talk,—­but I had no idea it had gone so far.  As you know, I have always taken Mrs. Wentworth’s side in the unhappy differences between her and her husband.  This has been no secret.  I cannot help taking the side of the woman in any controversy.  I have tried to stand her friend, notwithstanding what people said.  Sometimes I have been able to help her.  But—­” He paused and took a long breath, his eyes on the ground.  Then, leaning forward, he gazed into her face.