"Without a hearing? I've heard you both!"

----"but I won't," he continued, "remind you of that, or of
anything or any one but Owen."

"Owen?"

"Yes; if we could somehow spare him----"

She had dropped her hands and turned her startled eyes on
him. It seemed to her an age since she had thought of Owen!

"You see, don't you," Darrow continued, "that if you send me
away now----"

She interrupted: "Yes, I see----" and there was a long
silence between them. At length she said, very low: "I
don't want any one else to suffer as I'm suffering..."

"Owen knows I meant to leave tomorrow," Darrow went on. "Any
sudden change of plan may make him think..."

Oh, she saw his inevitable logic: the horror of it was on
every side of her! It had seemed possible to control her
grief and face Darrow calmly while she was upheld by the
belief that this was their last hour together, that after he
had passed out of the room there would be no fear of seeing
him again, no fear that his nearness, his look, his voice,
and all the unseen influences that flowed from him, would
dissolve her soul to weakness. But her courage failed at the