“I can’t—­I can’t!” she whispered brokenly.  “I wish I could . . . you were good to me once.  Oh!  Maurice, I’m not a bad woman, not a wicked woman . . . but I’ve my son to think of . . . his happiness.”  She paused, mastering, with an effort, the emotion that threatened to engulf her.  “Nothing else counts—­nothing!  If you go to the wall, Tim wins.”

“So I’m to pay—­first for your happiness, and now, more than twenty years later, for your son’s.  You don’t ask—­very much—­of a man, Elisabeth.”

He had himself in hand now.  The momentary weakness which had wrenched that brief, anguished appeal from his lips was past, and the dry scorn of his voice cut like a lash, stinging her into hostility once more.

“I have given you the chance to break with Sara yourself—­on any pretext you choose to invent,” she said hardly.  “You’ve refused—­” She hesitated.  “You do—­still refuse, Maurice?” Again the note of pleading, of appeal in her voice.  It was as though she begged of him to spare them both the consequences of that refusal.

He bowed.  “Absolutely.”

She sighed impatiently.

“Then I must take the only other way that remains.  You know what that will be.”

He stooped, and, picking up her cloak which had fallen to the floor, held it for her to put on.  He had completely regained his customary indifference of manner.

“I think we need not prolong this interview, then,” he said composedly.

Elisabeth drew the cloak around her and moved slowly towards the window.  Outside, the tranquil moonlight still flooded the garden, the peaceful quiet of the night remained all undisturbed by the fierce conflict of human wills and passions that had spent itself so uselessly.

“One thing more”—­she paused on the threshold as Trent spoke again—­“You will not blacken the name of—­”

“No!” It was as though she had struck the unuttered word from his lips.  “Did you think I should?  Those who bear it have suffered enough.  There’s no need to drag it through the mire a second time.”

With a quick movement she drew her cloak more closely about her, and stepped out into the garden.  For a moment Garth watched her crossing the lawns, a slender, upright, swiftly moving shadow.  Then a clump of bushes, thrusting its wall of darkness into the silver sea of moonlight, hid her from his sight, and he turned back into the room.  Stumblingly he made his way to the chimney-piece, and, resting his arms upon it, hid his face.

For a long time he remained thus, motionless, while the grandfather clock in the corner ticked away indifferently, and one by one the candles guttered down and went out in little pools of grease.

When at last he raised his face, it looked almost ghastly in the moonlight, so lined and haggard was it, and its sternly set expression was that of a man who had schooled himself to endure the supreme ill that destiny may hold in store.