"You shan't."
"What could you do?"
"I'll find some way … a medical certificate!"
"The shame of it!" She covered her face with her hands.
"It won't happen. She's had her money. He may have rubbed her up the wrong way, but after all she has nothing to gain by interfering."
"If only I had told him myself! If only I hadn't lied to him!"
Peter, desperately miserable, walked about the room, interjecting a word now and again, trying to inspirit her.
"You had better go," she said to him in the end. "It's nearly ten o'clock. If he is coming up at all he will be here soon."
"Of course he is coming up. How can I leave you like this?" he answered wildly. "Can't I do anything, say anything, see him for you?" Margaret showed the pale simulacrum of a smile.
"That was my idea, once before, wasn't it? No, you can't see him for me."
"I can't do anything?"
"I'm not sure."
She spoke slowly, hesitatingly. In truth she did not know how she was to bear what she saw before her. Not marriage, safety, happiness, was to be hers, only humiliation. Death was prefer-
