“You will spare me,” she went on.  “You see I did no one any harm, wrong or injury.  If I hurt another, then you might deprive me of my husband and my home; as it is, Lance loves me and I love him.  You will not tell him?”

“I will think about it,” I replied.

“But I cannot live in this suspense,” she cried.  “If you will tell him, tell him this day, this hour.”

“He might forgive you,” I said.

“No, he would not be angry, he would not reproach me, but he would never look upon my face again.”

“Would it not be better for you to tell him yourself?” I suggested.

“Oh, no!” she cried, with a shudder.  “No, I shall never tell him.”

“I do not say that I shall,” I said.  “Give me a few days—­only a few days—­and I will decide in my mind all about it.”

Then we saw Lance in the distance.

“There is my husband,” she said.  “Do I look very ill, Mr. Ford?”

“You do, indeed; you look ghastly,” I said.

“I will go and meet him,” she said.

The exercise and the fresh air brought some little color to her face before they met.  Still he cried out that I had not taken care of her; that she was overtired.

“That is it,” she replied.  “I have been over-tired all day:  I think my head aches; I have had a strange sensation of dizziness in it, I am tired—­oh, Lance, I am so tired!”

“I shall not leave you again,” said Lance to her, and I fancied he was not quite pleased with me, and thought I had neglected her.  We all three went home together.  Mrs. Fleming did not say much, but she kept up better than I thought she could have done.  I heard her that same evening express a wish to be driven to Vale Royal on the day following; a young girl, whom she had been instrumental in saving from ruin, had been suddenly taken ill, and wanted to see her.

“My darling,” Lance said, “you do not seem to me strong enough.  Let me persuade you to rest tomorrow.”

“I should like to see Rose Winter again before—­before I”—­then she stopped abruptly.

“Before you—­what, Frances?” he asked.

“I mean,” she said, “that I should like to see Rose before she grows worse.”

“I think you ought to rest, but you shall do as you like, Frances; you always do.  I will drive you over myself.”

I saw them start on the following morning, and then I tried to think over in solitude what it would be best to do.  Her story certainly altered facts very considerably.  She was not a murderess, as I had believed her to be.  If the death of the little hapless child was attributable to an overdose of the cordial, she had certainly not given it purposely.  Could I judge her?

Yet, an honest, loyal man like Lance ought not to be so cruelly deceived.  I felt sure myself that if she spoke to him—­if she told him her story with the same pathos with which she had told it to me, he would forgive her—­he must forgive her.  I could not reconcile it with my conscience to keep silence, I could not, and I believed that the truth might be told with safety.  So, after long thinking and deliberation, I came to the conclusion that Lance must know, and that she must tell him herself.