Triumph at any price is sweet to men and women--especially the latter.

It was her first and last opportunity of repaying him for the cruel

contumely which she had borne at his hands so docilely.

"Yes," she answered; and there was that in her subtly compounded nature

which made her feel a thrill of pride as she did so.

Yet the moment after she had so mightily belied her character she half

repented. Her husband had turned as white as the wall behind him. It

seemed as if all that remained to him of life and spirit had been

abstracted at a stroke. Yet he did not move, and in his efforts at

self-control closed his mouth together as a vice. His determination

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was fairly successful, though she saw how very much greater than she

had expected her triumph had been. Presently he looked across at

Winterborne.

"Would it startle you to hear," he said, as if he hardly had breath to

utter the words, "that she who was to me what he was to you is dead

also?"

"Dead--SHE dead?" exclaimed Grace.

"Yes. Felice Charmond is where this young man is."

"Never!" said Grace, vehemently.

He went on without heeding the insinuation: "And I came back to try to

make it up with you--but--"

Fitzpiers rose, and moved across the room to go away, looking downward

with the droop of a man whose hope was turned to apathy, if not

despair. In going round the door his eye fell upon her once more. She

was still bending over the body of Winterborne, her face close to the

young man's.

"Have you been kissing him during his illness?" asked her husband.

"Yes."

"Since his fevered state set in?"

"Yes."

"On his lips?"

"Yes."

"Then you will do well to take a few drops of this in water as soon as

possible." He drew a small phial from his pocket and returned to offer

it to her.

Grace shook her head.

"If you don't do as I tell you you may soon be like him."

"I don't care. I wish to die."

"I'll put it here," said Fitzpiers, placing the bottle on a ledge

beside him. "The sin of not having warned you will not be upon my head

at any rate, among my other sins. I am now going, and I will send

somebody to you. Your father does not know that you are here, so I

suppose I shall be bound to tell him?"




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