Then her last phrase struck his ear and his face clouded.  “Go home?  What do you mean by going home?”

“Home to my husband.”

“And you expect me to say yes to that?”

She raised her troubled eyes to his.  “What else is there?  I can’t stay here and lie to the people who’ve been good to me.”

“But that’s the very reason why I ask you to come away!”

“And destroy their lives, when they’ve helped me to remake mine?”

Archer sprang to his feet and stood looking down on her in inarticulate despair.  It would have been easy to say:  “Yes, come; come once.”  He knew the power she would put in his hands if she consented; there would be no difficulty then in persuading her not to go back to her husband.

But something silenced the word on his lips.  A sort of passionate honesty in her made it inconceivable that he should try to draw her into that familiar trap.  “If I were to let her come,” he said to himself, “I should have to let her go again.”  And that was not to be imagined.

But he saw the shadow of the lashes on her wet cheek, and wavered.

“After all,” he began again, “we have lives of our own. . . .  There’s no use attempting the impossible.  You’re so unprejudiced about some things, so used, as you say, to looking at the Gorgon, that I don’t know why you’re afraid to face our case, and see it as it really is—­unless you think the sacrifice is not worth making.”

She stood up also, her lips tightening under a rapid frown.

“Call it that, then—­I must go,” she said, drawing her little watch from her bosom.

She turned away, and he followed and caught her by the wrist.  “Well, then:  come to me once,” he said, his head turning suddenly at the thought of losing her; and for a second or two they looked at each other almost like enemies.

“When?” he insisted.  “Tomorrow?”

She hesitated.  “The day after.”

“Dearest—!” he said again.

She had disengaged her wrist; but for a moment they continued to hold each other’s eyes, and he saw that her face, which had grown very pale, was flooded with a deep inner radiance.  His heart beat with awe:  he felt that he had never before beheld love visible.

“Oh, I shall be late—­good-bye.  No, don’t come any farther than this,” she cried, walking hurriedly away down the long room, as if the reflected radiance in his eyes had frightened her.  When she reached the door she turned for a moment to wave a quick farewell.

Archer walked home alone.  Darkness was falling when he let himself into his house, and he looked about at the familiar objects in the hall as if he viewed them from the other side of the grave.

The parlour-maid, hearing his step, ran up the stairs to light the gas on the upper landing.

“Is Mrs. Archer in?”

“No, sir; Mrs. Archer went out in the carriage after luncheon, and hasn’t come back.”