"Stop," Candish interrupted. "First you have to think of her."

Philip stared in silence. It came over him how entirely he had been
thinking of himself, and how little he had considered Mrs. Fenton in
his reflections upon the events of the previous evening. Here was a man
who could love her so well as to think of her first and himself last.

"But I have given her up," Philip stammered.

"Was she yours to give up?"

There was nothing bitter or sneering in the words; they were said
simply and dispassionately.

"No," Philip answered, dropping his voice; "she was not mine."

The older man rose and walked to the fire, where he stood looking down
at the flaming coals.

"After all," he said, "we are pretty much in the same plight. I knew
her when her husband brought her here a bride, the loveliest creature
alive. Arthur Fenton was a clever, selfish, wholly irreligious man; and
I could not help seeing how completely he failed to understand or
appreciate his wife. She was kind to me, and when her trouble came she
turned to me for comfort and sympathy. It is my weakness that I love
her; but she will never know it."

"And does she love nobody?" demanded Ashe jealously.

Candish turned upon him a look of rebuke.