“Mr. Davies,” she said before he could speak, and handing him the package, “this has been sent to me by mistake.  Will you kindly take it back?”

He took it, abashed.

“Mr. Davies,” she went on, looking him full in the eyes, “I hope that there will be no more such mistakes.  Please understand that I cannot accept presents from you.”

“If Mr. Bingham had sent it, you would have accepted it,” he muttered sulkily.

Beatrice turned and flashed such a look on him that he fell back and left her.  But it was true, and she knew that it was true.  If Geoffrey had given her a sixpence with a hole in it, she would have valued it more than all the diamonds on earth.  Oh! what a position was hers.  And it was wrong, too.  She had no right to love the husband of another woman.  But right or wrong the fact remained:  she did love him.

And the worst of it was that, as she well knew, sooner or later all this about Mr. Davies must come to the ears of her father, and then what would happen?  One thing was certain.  In his present poverty-stricken condition he would move heaven and earth to bring about her marriage to this rich man.  Her father never had been very scrupulous where money was concerned, and the pinch of want was not likely to make him more so.

Nor, we may be sure, did all this escape the jealous eye of Elizabeth.  Things looked black for her, but she did not intend to throw up the cards on that account.  Only it was time to lead trumps.  In other words, Beatrice must be fatally compromised in the eyes of Owen Davies, if by any means this could be brought about.  So far things had gone well for her schemes.  Beatrice and Geoffrey loved each other, of that Elizabeth was certain.  But the existence of this secret, underhand affection would avail her naught unless it could be ripened into acts.  Everybody is free to indulge in secret predilections, but if once they are given way to, if once a woman’s character is compromised, then the world avails itself of its opportunities and destroys her.  What man, thought Elizabeth, would marry a compromised woman?  If Beatrice could be compromised, Owen Davies would not take her to wife—­therefore this must be brought about.

It sounds wicked and unnatural.  “Impossible that sister should so treat sister,” the reader of this history may say, thinking of her own, and of her affectionate and respectable surroundings.  But it is not impossible.  If you, who doubt, will study the law reports, and no worse occupation can be wished to you, you will find that such things are possible.  Human nature can rise to strange heights, and it can also fall to depths beyond your fathoming.  Because a thing is without parallel in your own small experience it in no way follows that it cannot be.