had come into her life. North had divined that the course of their love-making was far from smooth, for Langham's temper was high and his will arbitrary, nor was he one to bear meekly the crosses she laid on him, crosses which other men had borne in smiling uncomplaint, reasoning no doubt, that it was unwise to take her favors too seriously; that as they were easily achieved they were quite as easily forfeited. But Langham was not like the other men with whom she had amused herself. He was not only older and more brilliant, but was giving every indication that his professional success would be solid and substantial. Evelyn's father had championed his cause, and in the end she had married him.

In the five years that had elapsed since then, her romance had taken its place with the accepted things of life, and she revenged herself on Langham, for what she had come to consider his unreasonable exactions, by her recklessness, by her thirst for pleasure, and above all by her extravagance.

Through all the vicissitudes of her married life, the smallest part of which he only guessed, North had seen much of Evelyn. There was a daring dangerous recklessness in her mood that he had sensed and understood and to which he had made quick response. He knew that she was none too happy with Langham, and although he had been conscious of no wish to wrong the husband he had never paused to consider the outcome of his intimacy with the wife.

Evelyn was the first to break the silence.

"You wonder why I came here, don't you, Jack?" she said.

"You should never have done it!" he replied quickly.

"What about my letters, why didn't you answer them?" she demanded. "I hadn't one word from you in weeks. It quite spoiled my trip East. What was I to think? And then you sent me just a line saying you were leaving Mount Hope—" she drew in her breath sharply. There was a brief silence. "Why?" she asked at length.

"It is better that I should," he answered awkwardly.

He felt a sudden remorseful tenderness for her; he wished that she might have divined the change that had come over him; even how worthless a thing his devotion had been, the utter selfishness of it.

"Why is it better?" she asked. He was near enough for her to put out a small hand and rest it on his arm. "Jack, have I done anything to make you hate me? Don't you care any longer for me?"

"I care a great deal, Evelyn. I want you to think the best of me."

"But why do you go? And when do you think of going, Jack?" The hand that she had rested there a moment before, left his arm and dropped at her side.

"I don't know yet, my plans are very uncertain. I am quite at the end of my money. I have been a good deal of a fool, Evelyn."

Something in his manner restrained her, she was not so sure as she had been of her hold on him. She looked up appealingly into his face, the smile had left her lips and her eyes were sad, but he mistrusted the genuineness of this swift change of mood, certainly its permanence.

"What will there be left for me, Jack, when you go? I thought—I thought—" her full lips quivered.

She was realizing that this separation which her imagination had already invested with a tragic significance, meant much less to him than she believed it would mean to her; more than this, the cruel suspicion was certifying itself that in her absence from Mount Hope, North had undergone some strange transformation; was no longer the reckless, dissipated, young fellow who for months had been as her very shadow.

"I am going to-night, Evelyn," he said with sudden determination.

She gave a half smothered cry.

"To-night! To-night!" she repeated.

He changed his position uncomfortably.

"I am at the end of my string, Evelyn," he said slowly.

"I—I shall miss you dreadfully, Jack! You know I am frightfully unhappy; what will it be when you go? Marsh has made a perfect wreck of my life!"

"Nonsense, Evelyn!" he replied bruskly. "You must be careful what you say to me!"

"I haven't been careful before!" she asserted.

He bit his lips. She went swiftly on.

"I have told you everything! I don't care what happens to me—you know I don't, Jack! I am deadly desperately tired!" She paused, then she cried vehemently. "One endures a situation as long as one can, but there comes a time when it is impossible to go on with the falsehood any longer, and I have reached that time! It is my life, my happiness that are at stake!"

"Sometimes it is better to do without happiness," he philosophized.

"That is silly, Jack, no one believes that sort of thing any more; but it is good to teach to women and children, it saves a lot of bother, I suppose. But men take their happiness regardless of the rights of others!"

"Not always," he said.

"Yes, always!" she insisted.

"But you knew what Marsh was before you married him."

"It's a woman's vanity to believe she can reform, can control a man." She glanced at him furtively. What had happened to change him? Always until now he had responded to the recklessness of her mood, he had seemed to understand her without the need of words. Her brows met in an angry frown. Was he a coward? Did he fear Marshall Langham? Once more she rested her hand on his arm. "Jack, dear Jack, are you going to fail me, too?"

"What would you have me say or do, Evelyn?" he demanded impatiently.

She regarded him sadly.

"What has made you change, Jack? What is it; what have I done? Why did you not answer my letters? Why did you not come to see me?"

"I only learned that you were in town this afternoon," he said.

"Yes, but you had no intention of coming, I know you hadn't! You would have left Mount Hope without even a good-by to me!"

"It is hard enough to have to go, Evelyn!"

"It isn't that, Jack. What have I done? How have I displeased you?"

"You haven't displeased me, Evelyn," he faltered.

"Then why have you treated me as you have?"

"I thought it would be easier," he said.

"Have you forgotten what friends we were once?" she asked softly. "You always helped me out of my difficulties then, and you told me once that you cared—a great deal for me, more than you should ever care for any woman!"

"Yes," he answered shortly, and was silent.

He would scarcely have admitted to himself how foolish his early passion had been, for it was at least sincere and there could have been no sacrifice, at one time, that he would not have willingly made for her sake. His later sentiment for her had been a disgracing and a disgraceful thing, and he was glad to think of this boyish love, since it carried him back to a time before he had wrought only misery for himself. She misunderstood his reticence, she could not realize that she had lost the power that had once been hers.

"What a mistake I made, Jack!" she cried, and stretched out her hands toward him.

He fell back a step.

"Nonsense!" he said. He glanced sharply at her.

"How stupid you are!" she exclaimed.

She half rose from her chair with her hands still extended toward him. For a moment he met her glance, and then, disgusted and ashamed, withdrew his eyes from hers.

Evelyn sank back in her chair, and her face turned white and she covered it with her hands. North was the first to break the silence.

"We would both of us better forget this," he said quietly.

She rose and stood at his side. The color had returned to her cheeks.

"What a fool you are, John North!" she jeered softly. "And I might have made the tragic mistake of really caring for you!" She gave a little shiver of dismay, and then after a moment's tense silence: "What a boy you are,—almost as much of a boy as when we used to play together."

"I think there is nothing more to say, Evelyn," North said shortly. "It is growing late. You must not be seen leaving here!"

She laughed.

"Oh, it would take a great deal to compromise me; though if Marsh ever finds out