“You will promise, won’t you?” she persisted, in a whisper. “It’s only ‘in case’—just that I needn’t worry myself.” “It’s quite easy,” said Joan, “with your beauty. Especially if you’re not going to be particular. But isn’t there danger of your devotion to your father leading you too far? A marriage founded on a lie—no matter for what purpose!—mustn’t it degrade a woman—smirch her soul for all time? We have a right to give up the things that belong to ourselves, but not the things that belong to God: our truth, our sincerity, our cleanliness of mind and body; the things that He may one day want of us. It led you into evil once before. Don’t think I’m judging you. I was no better than you. I argued just as you must have done. Something stopped me just in time. That was the only difference between us.”!

“So I do,” Joan defended herself. “I’m in and out there till I’m sick of the hideous place. You haven’t seen the inside. And his wife knows all about it, and is only too glad.” “Your mother’s,” he answered. “I built them the year I came back from America and gave them to her. I thought it would interest her. Perhaps it would, if I had left her to her own ways.”

She looked at him and smiled. “It’s quite easy,” she answered. “I always see her as she lay there with all the sorrow gone from her. She looked so beautiful and kind.” “I’ve only asked a few,” she explained, as she led Joan into the restful white-panelled sitting-room that looked out upon the gardens. Madge shared a set of chambers in Gray’s Inn with her brother who was an actor. “But I have chosen them with care.” “Abner is your second?” suggested Miss Tolley.