sent down the dark windings of the situation. He seemed suddenly to
know Madame de Treymes as if he had been brought up with her in the
inscrutable shades of the Hotel de Malrive.

She, on her side, appeared to have a startled but uncomprehending
sense of the fact that his silence was no longer completely
sympathetic, that her touch called forth no answering vibration; and
she made a desperate clutch at the one chord she could be certain of
sounding.

"You have asked a great deal of me--much more than you can guess. Do
you mean to give me nothing--not even your sympathy--in return? Is
it because you have heard horrors of me? When are they not said of a
woman who is married unhappily? Perhaps not in your fortunate
country, where she may seek liberation without dishonour. But
here--! You who have seen the consequences of our disastrous
marriages--you who may yet be the victim of our cruel and abominable
system; have you no pity for one who has suffered in the same way,
and without the possibility of release?" She paused, laying her hand
on his arm with a smile of deprecating irony. "It is not because you
are not rich. At such times the crudest way is the shortest, and I
don't pretend to deny that I know I am asking you a trifle. You
Americans, when you want a thing, always pay ten times what it is
worth, and I am giving you the wonderful chance to get what you most
want at a bargain."

Durham sat silent, her little gloved hand burning his coat-sleeve as
if it had been a hot iron. His brain was tingling with the shock of
her confession. She wanted money, a great deal of money: that was
clear, but it was not the point. She was ready to sell her