blood of her child was upon his hands.  She trembled at the thought of being near him.  Nevertheless, because she was not mad, in time reason asserted itself within her.  Dion disappeared out of her life.  He did not put up the big fight for the big thing of which Lady Ingleton had once spoken to her husband.  His type of love was far too sensitive to struggle and fight on its own behalf.  When he had heard the key of his house door turned against him, when, later, Mr. Darlington with infinite precautions had very delicately explained to him why it had been done, Rosamund had attained her freedom.  He had waited on for a time in England, but he had somehow never been able really to hope for any change in his wife.  His effort to make her see the tragedy in its true light had exhausted itself in the garden at Welsley.  Her frantic evasion of him had brought it to an end.  He could not renew it.  Even if he had been ready to renew it those about Rosamund would have dissuaded him from doing so.  Every one who was near her saw plainly that “for the present”—­as they put it—­Dion must keep out of her life.

And gradually Rosamund had lost that half-animal fear of him, gradually she had come to realize something of the tragedy of his situation.  A change had come about in her almost in despite of herself.  And yet she had never been able to forgive him for what he had done.  Her reason knew that she had nothing to forgive; her religious sense, her conception of God, obliged her to believe that Dion had been God’s instrument when he had killed his child; but something within her refused him pardon.  Perhaps she felt that pardon could only mean one thing—­reconciliation.  And now had come Lady Ingleton’s revelation.  Instinctively as Rosamund left Father Robertson’s little room she had tried to hide her face.  She had received a blow, and the pain of it frightened her.  She was startled by her own suffering.  What did it mean?  What did it portend?  She had no right to feel as she did.  Long ago she had abandoned the right to such a feeling.

The information Lady Ingleton had brought outraged Rosamund.  Anger and a sort of corrosive shame struggled for the mastery within her.

She felt humiliated to the dust.  She felt dirty, soiled.

Dion had been unfaithful to her.

With whom?

The white face of Mrs. Clarke came before Rosamund in the murky street, two wide-open distressed and intent eyes started into hers.

The woman was Mrs. Clarke.

Mrs. Clarke—­and Dion.  Mrs. Clarke had succeeded in doing what long ago she had designed to do.  She had succeeded in taking possession of Dion.

“Because I threw him away!  Because I threw him away!”

Rosamund found herself repeating those words again and again.

“I threw him away, I threw him away.  Otherwise——­”