“You will,” he answered.  “It will be better for you.”

“Will it be worse for me if I don’t?” she laughed feverishly.  “And how will it be better for you if I do?  I know you are in it.”

He lost his temper and was indiscreet, as his temper continually betrayed him into being.

“Yes, I am in it,” he said through his teeth, “as you might have the sense to see.  Everything is the better for us that throws us with them, and makes them familiar with the thought of us and our rights.”

“Our rights,” the words were a shrill taunt.

“What rights have you, likely to be recognised, unless you kill her.  Are you going to kill her?”

He had a moment of insanity.

“I’d kill her and you too if it was safe to do it.  You both deserve it!”

He flung across the room, having lost his wits as well as his temper.  But a second later both came back to him as in a revulsion of feeling.

“I talk like a melodramatic fool,” he cried.  “Oh, Hester, forgive me!” He knelt on the floor by her side, caressing her imploringly.  “We both take fire in the same way.  We are both driven crazy by this damned blow.  We’re beaten; we may as well own it and take what we can get.  She’s a fool, but she’s better than that pompous, stiff brute Walderhurst, and she has a lot of pull over him he knows nothing about.  The smug animal is falling in love with her in his way.  She can make him do the decent thing.  Let us keep friends with her.”

“The decent thing would be a thousand a year,” wailed Hester, giving in to his contrition in spite of herself, because she had once been in love with him, and because she was utterly helpless.  “Five hundred a year wouldn’t be indecent.”

“Let us keep on her good side,” he said, fondling her, with a relieved countenance.  “Tell her you will come and that she is an angel, and that you are sure a visit to the Manor will save your life.”

They went to Palstrey a few days later.  Ameerah accompanied them in attendance upon her mistress, and the three settled down into a life so regular that it scarcely seemed to wear the aspect of a visit.  The Osborns were given some of the most beautiful and convenient rooms in the house.  No other visitors were impending and the whole big place was at their disposal.  Hester’s boudoir overlooked the most perfect nooks of garden, and its sweet chintz draperies and cushions and books and flowers made it a luxurious abode of peace.

“What shall I do,” she said on the first evening in it as she sat in a soft chair by the window, looking out at the twilight and talking to Emily.  “What shall I do when I must go away?”

“I don’t mean only from here,—­I mean away from England, to loathly India.”

“Do you dislike it so?” Emily asked, roused to a new conception of her feeling by her tone.

“I could never describe to you how much,” fiercely.  “It is like going to the place which is the opposite of Heaven.”