“You are not usually so tongue-tied,” she remarked, irritably.  “Have you nothing to say to me?”

“I am wondering,” he said, quietly, “what has given birth to this sudden interest in my proceedings.  What does it matter to you how my days are spent, or what manner of use I make of them?”

“There was a time—­” she began.

“A time irretrievably past,” he interrupted, shortly.

“I am not so sure!” she declared, doubtfully.

“What has Borrowdean to do with this?” he asked her, abruptly.

“Borrowdean?”

“Surely!  Some one has been putting notions into your head.”

“Why take that for granted?” she asked, equably.  “The pity of the whole thing is obvious enough, isn’t it?  Sometimes I think that we were a pair of fools.  We played into the hands of fate.  We were brought face to face with a terrible situation.  Instead of meeting it bravely we played the coward.  Why don’t you forget, Lawrence, as I have done?  Take up your work again.  Set a seal upon—­that memory.”

“I have outgrown my ambitions,” he answered.  “Life was hot enough in my veins then.  Desire grows cold with the years.  I am content.”

“But I,” she answered, “am not.”

“We each chose our life,” he reminded her.

“Perhaps.  I am not satisfied with my choice.  You may be with yours.”

“I am.”

She leaned over towards him.

“Once,” she said, “you offered me what you called—­atonement.  I refused it.  Just then it seemed horrible.  Now that feeling has passed away.  I am lonely, Lawrence, and I am weary of the sort of life I have been living.  Supposing I asked you to make me that offer again?”

Mannering turned slowly towards her.  He was not a man who easily showed emotion, but there were traces of it now in his face.  The hand which rested on the back of his chair shook.  There was in his eyes the look of a man who sees evil things.

“It is too late, Blanche,” he said.  “You cannot be in earnest?”

“Why not?” she murmured, dropping her eyes.  “I am tired of my life.  What you owed me then you owe me now.  Why should it be too late?  I am not an old woman yet, nor are you an old man, and I am weary of being alone.”

Mannering walked to the window.  His hand went to his forehead.  It was damp and cold.  He was afraid!  If she were in earnest!  And she spoke like a woman who knew her mind.  She was always, he remembered, a creature of caprice.  If she were really in earnest!

“We have drifted too far apart, Blanche,” he said, making an effort to face the situation.  “Years ago this might have been possible.  To-day it would be a dismal failure.  My ways are not yours.  The life I lead would bore you to death.”

“There is no reason why you should not alter it,” she answered, calmly.  “In fact, I should wish you to.  Blakely all the year round would be an impossibility.  You could come and live in London.”