never love any human being more, and that
men were all false, sensual, and selfish. But
he came to me like God's sunshine after the
long black winter. I felt young again, I who
had deemed myself old at five-and-twenty.
I ought to have told him all my miserable
story. I had many a struggle with my
conscience about it. But—but—Robert
honoured me so highly. He had such an
exalted ideal of what a woman ought to
be. I was a coward. I dared not risk
losing him. I had been so unhappy,
so unhappy! I think none but a woman
can understand what I had suffered. And
here was a glimpse of Paradise. Was I to
speak the word which might bar me out for
ever, back into the desolate cold to die? I
could not do it. I thought 'when we are
married, when he has learned to believe in
my great love for him, and to trust me as
his faithful wife, I will kneel down, and
hide my face on his knees, and tell him.'
But as I learned to know him better, I
found what a fatal mistake I had made,
in delaying my confession. You know
Robert. He says that he could never
again trust any one who had once deceived
him. The first time he said so, a knife
went into my heart. Oh, if I had but told
him at first, he might have pitied, and
forgiven, and loved me! For, God knows, I
was more sinned against than sinning. I
was but sixteen. Think of it! Sixteen
years old! Well, this concealment bore
bitter fruit. My father has been dead
three years, but recently one of his old
associates, the man you have been speaking
of, came to London, found me out,
and came to me for assistance; being
always, as all his kind are, either flush of
money or a beggar. My horror at sight
of him; my dread lest Robert, who was at
the studio, should return and find him,
showed him, I suppose, what hold he had
upon me. From soliciting alms, he came
to demanding money like a highwayman.
I gave him what I could. Since then he
has persecuted me, until life is almost
unendurable. I see Robert's anxiety, I am
tormented for him. But I dare not tell
the truth. This wretch threatens me, if I
do not comply with his demands, that he
will tell my proud English husband all the
history of my youth. You, who know
something of the man, can conjecture in what a
hideous light he would put the facts he
has to relate. If Robert were to spurn
me and despise me, I should die. Oh, I
am afraid! It is so horrible to be afraid!"

Sidney listened sympathetically. He was
(as is not uncommon) better than his creed,
which was already a somewhat cynical one.
He soothed and encouraged Mrs. Lockwood;
promised to rid her of the scoundrel
for ever; and adroitly said a word or two
to the effect that she had better not trouble
her husband with so annoying and
contemptible a matter.

"I know Robert very well," said he,
"and I am sure he would not rest until he
had thrashed our French friend soundly.
Now a kicking more or less in his life
would not matter to him at all. It would
put Robert in the wrong, too, and distress
you. I undertake to punish the miscreant
much more effectually."

How he managed to get rid of her
tormentor, Zillah never certainly knew; but
the man dropped out of her life never to
reappear in it.

Sidney Frost was actuated chiefly by
motives of kindness towards the
Lockwoods. Whatever this woman's past
might have been, she made his friend a
good wife. Robert idolised her. He was
happy in his unfaltering faith in her. But
he would not have been able to be happy,
had his faith once been shaken. That was
the nature of the man. Frost would serve
both husband and wife, and would keep
his own counsel.

Added to all these considerations, there
was another incentive influencing his
conduct: the professional zest, namely, with
which he contemplated baulking a rascal's
schemes—a zest quite as far removed from
any consideration of abstract right and
wrong, as the eagerness of a fox-hunter is
removed from moral indignation against
the thievish propensities of the fox.

The two years that ensued were the
happiest Zillah had ever known, or was
fated to know. She was the joyful mother
of a son. Her husband's fame and fortune
rose day by day. Sidney Frost never
reminded her of the secret they shared
between them, by word or look. And she
had grown almost to regard the days of her
misery and degradation as something unreal,
like the remembrance of a bad dream.

But a change was at hand.

Robert Lockwood fell ill. His was not
a rapid alarming disorder, but a slow
wasting away, as it seemed. A short time
before his health began to fail, he had
yielded to the urgent solicitation of his
friend Sidney Frost, and had confided to
the latter a large sum of money—the
savings of his life—to be invested in certain
speculations which Sidney guaranteed to