CHAPTER XV
Margaret slept ill that night. Round and round in her unhappy mind swirled the irrefutable fact that she had lied to her lover, and that he knew she had lied. Broken her promise, her oath; and he knew that she was forsworn. She passionately desired his respect; in all things he had been on his knees before her. If he were no longer there she would find the change of attitude difficult to endure. Yet in the watches of the night she clung to the hope that he could know nothing definitely. He might suspect or divine, but he could not know. She counted on Peter Kennedy, trusted that when the five hundred pounds were paid the woman would be satisfied, would go quietly away, that nothing more would ever be heard of her.
Wednesday next they were to be married. She told herself that if she had lost anything she would regain it then. Perhaps she would tell him, but not until after she had re-won him. She knew her power. If, too, she distrusted it, sensing something in him incorruptible and granite-hard, she took faint and feverish consolation by reminding herself that it was night-time, when all troubles look their worst. She resolutely refused to consider the per-
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