“That doesn’t make it any the easier to me,” said Doria.  “The horrible things I said and did—­the ghastliness of it—­”

“My dear girl,” I interrupted, as kindly as I could.  “Don’t let this mere fringe of tragedy worry you.”

She laughed shrilly, with a set, white face; which is the most unmirthful kind of laugh you can imagine.

“Don’t you know that it’s the fringe that is the maddening irritation?  The big central thing numbs and stupefies, when it doesn’t kill.  And for some reason”—­she threw out her little gloved hands—­“the big thing hasn’t killed me—­it has paralysed me.  The springs of feeling”—­she clutched her bosom—­“are dried up.  My heart is withered and dead.  I can’t explain.  For all the dead things I’m not responsible.  I’ve gone through Hell the last two or three weeks and they’ve been burned up altogether.  But what hasn’t been burned up is the fringe, as you call it.  That’s only red-hot.  It scorches me, and I can’t sleep for the torture of it. . . .”  She stopped, and fronting me laid an appealing touch on my arm.  “Oh, Hilary, forgive me.  I didn’t mean to go on in this wild way.  I thought I had a better hold on myself.”

“I don’t see,” said I, “why you shouldn’t unburden your heart to one who has proved himself to be a friend not only of yours, but of Adrian.”

She released me, and with a wide gesture, swayed across the gravel path.  I stepped to her side and mechanically we walked on, a few paces, before either of us spoke.

“I have told you,” she said at last.  “I have no heart to unburden.  There never was an Adrian.”

“There was indeed,” said I, warmly.

“Yours.  Not mine.”

“Have you no forgiveness for him, then?” I asked earnestly.

She halted again and looked at me and at the back of her great eyes gleamed black ice.

“No,” she said.

I went straight to bed-rock.

“He was the father of your dead child,” said I.

Her small frame heaved and she looked away from me down the drive.  “I can only thank God that the child didn’t live.”

Barbara had told me something of the fear in which she seemed to hold Adrian’s memory.  But I had not in the least realised it till now when I heard the profession from her own lips.  In fact, I know that she had never yet spoken to Barbara with such passionate directness.

“You oughtn’t to say such a thing, Doria,” I said sternly.

“I am as God made me.”

“Adrian loved you.  He sinned for your sake—­in order to get you.”

She dismissed the argument with a gesture.

“You must have pity on him,” I insisted, “for the unspeakable torment of those months of barrenness, of abortive attempts at creation.”

She was silent for a moment.  Having reached the front gates we turned and began to walk up the drive.  Then she said: