Once more he cast himself before her, real passion, its utmost abandonment, in every tone. She had let him rave on, never moving, her cold eyes fixed upon him, full of hard, contemptuous fire.

"You mean all this, Mr. Thorndyke? Yes, I see you do. And you love me--you always loved me, even when you cast me off and married Miss Holmes, really and truly?"

"Really and truly! I swear it, Norine?"

"No--don't swear, please--it's against my principles to encourage profanity. But isn't it rather late in the day to tell me all this?

There is your wife--you don't care for her, of course, but still you see she _is_ your wife, in the eye of the world at least. And a gentleman's wife is rather an obstacle when that gentleman makes love to another lady."

The fine irony of her tone he did not hear--the scorn of her eyes he did not see. The "madness of the gods" was upon him--blind and deaf he was going to his doom.

"An obstacle, but an obstacle easily set aside. In any case I mean to have a divorce. I never cared for her--there are times when I loathe her now. A divorce, with permission to marry again I shall obtain, and then, Norine--"

He moved as though to clasp her. With a shudder of horror and repulsion she waved him back. And still he was blind.

"And your children, Mr. Thorndyke?"

"That shall be as Helen wishes. I don't care for them--never cared for children. She may keep them if she wishes. If I had loved _her_ it would be easy to love her children. You consent then, Norine? It is as I hoped. You forgive the past. You will again be my wife. Oh, darling! my whole life shall be spent in the effort to blot out the past and make you entirely happy. You love me still--say it, Norine!"

He clasped both her hands vehemently. She arose to answer. Before the words of passionate scorn on her lips could be spoken the inner door opened and Helen Thorndyke stood on the threshold.

"Great Heaven! Helen!"

He dropped Norine's hands and staggered back. For a moment he almost thought it her ghost, so white, so ghastly with concentrated passion was she. She advanced,--she tried to speak--at first the words died huskily away upon her dry lips.

"I have heard every word," she panted. "You coward! You basest of all base cowards. Though I live for a hundred years, these are the last words I shall ever speak to you. Living or dying I will never forgive you--living or dying I will never look upon your face again! Norine!"

She turned to her suddenly:

"You offered me a home and a competence once, apart from him. For his sake I refused it then--for my children's sake I ask it now. I have no hope left but in you and--Heaven."

Her head fell on Norine's shoulder with one dry, hard sob, and there lay. Norine Darcy drew her to her side, her arm clasping her closely, and so--faced Laurence Thorndyke.

"'Every dog has his day'. It is not a very elegant adage, but it is a true one. Your day has been, Mr. Thorndyke--- mine has come. For it I have hoped, and worked, for it I have let you go on--for it I have listened to the words you have spoken to-night--for it I concealed your wife yonder, that she might hear too. You love me, you say--I am glad to believe it--since a little of the torture you once made me feel you shall feel in return. For myself all memory of the past is gone. You are so utterly indifferent to me, so utterly contemptible in my sight, that I have not even hatred to give you. To me you are simply nothing. After this hour I will never see you, never speak to you. For your wife and children I will provide. You did your best to ruin me, soul and body, because you hated Richard Gilbert. I take from you wife and children, and what you value far more--fortune. I think we are quits, and as there is no more to be said, I will bid you good-night. Liston! show this gentleman to the door, and admit him here no more."

Then Mr. Liston, pale of face, soft of step, furtive of glance, appeared on the scene. Still clasping the drooping form of the outraged wife, Norine moved towards the inner room.

Thorndyke had stood quite still, his arms folded, listening to all. The game was up! A devil of fury, of disappointment, would possess him by-and-by--just now he only felt half-stunned. He turned to the door, with a harsh laugh.

"I have heard of men who murdered the women they loved, and wondered at them. I wonder no longer. By Heaven, if I had a pistol to-night you would never leave this room alive, Norine Bourdon!"

CHAPTER XXI.

"THE MILLS OF THE GODS GRIND SLOWLY, BUT THEY GRIND EXCEEDINGLY SMALL."

At the drawing-room window of the late Hugh Darcy's old-fashioned house, Hugh Darcy's heiress sits. It is a dreary November day, a long, lamentable blast soughs through the city streets--the two vestal poplars toss their green arms wildly aloft in the gale, and the sleety rain goes swirling before it. At all times a quiet street, it is entirely forsaken to-day. Far off comes the clatter and jangle of passing street-cars, the dull roar of the city's ceaseless life. In this by-street peace reigns.

Yet Norine sits by the window gazing steadfastly out at the wet, leaden, melancholy afternoon. In her lap some piece of flimsy feminine handicraft lies--on the table before her are strewn new books and uncut magazines. But she neither embroiders nor reads--she lies back against the crimson velvet of the old chair looking handsome and listless, her dark, thoughtful eyes, gazing aimlessly at the lashing rain. Now and then they turn from the picture without to the picture within, and she sighs softly.

A bright fire burns in the steel grate and lights ruddily the crimson-draped room. On a sofa drawn up before it, in a nest of pillows, Helen Thorndyke lies so still, so white, you might think her dead. But she is not even asleep, although she lies motionless with closed eyes.

Her life seems to have come to an end. Pride she has, and it has upheld her, but love she has too, and pride cannot quite crush it out. Since that fatal September night she has been here--since that night his name has never passed her lips; these two women, whose lives Laurence Thorndyke has marred, never talk of him. She lies here and broods, broods, broods ever--of the days that are gone and can never come again.

On the floor near, little Laurie is building a house of blocks, and squat in the centre of a wool rug baby Nellie crows delightedly and watches the progress of the architect. So the minutes tick off, and it is an hour since Norine has entered the room.

In the library, before her entrance here, she has had an interview with Richard Gilbert--it is of that interview and of him she sits thinking now. Some business connected with Mr. Darcy's estate has brought him, and she has asked him, constrainedly enough, for news of Laurence Thorndyke.

"I keep Liston on his track," she said, playing nervously with her watch chain. "Helen says little, but she suffers always. And Liston's news is of the dreariest."

The strong, gray eyes of the lawyer had lifted sternly to her face. No word of censure had ever escaped his lips--what right had he? but Norine felt the steady rebuke of that firm, cold glance. He knew all, and she felt he must utterly despise her now.

"He has fallen very low," Mr. Gilbert answered, briefly, "so low that it is hardly possible for him to fall much lower. In losing his wife and children he lost his last hold on respectability, his one last hope on earth."

"He deserved to lose them," Norine said, with a flash of her black eyes.

"Perhaps so. From all I hear _you_ should know best. But if stern justice is to be meted to us all, after your merciless fashion, then Heaven help us! If vengeance can gratify you, Mrs. Darcy, you may rest well content. He has sunk as low as his worst enemy could wish. But--you might have spared Helen."

Cold, cutting, the words of rebuke fell. He arose, gathering up his papers, his face set and stern. Her face drooped--she covered it with her hand, and turned away.

"She at least had never wronged you," Richard Gilbert pitilessly went on. "Have you made her any happier, Mrs. Darcy, by taking her husband from her? In spite of his myriad faults she loved him--she trusted him, and so, neither poverty, hard work, nor neglect could make her altogether miserable. _You_ led him on--led him on from the first, in cold blood, working for your revenge. And when you had crazed his brain by your smiles and fair words, and allurements, you brought his wife here to overhear the passion you had labored to inspire. You madden her in turn, you take her from him, you order him from your presence like a dog. You took from him the one good angel of his life--his wife--and gave him up boldly to the devil. He has earned it all, you have your revenge, but--as I stand and look at you here, I wonder--I wonder if _you_ can be Norine Bourdon."

A dry sob was her answer. He had poured forth the words, passionate reproach in his voice, passionate anger in his eyes. And she had shrank away before his just wrath like a guilty thing.

"His home is a gambler's hell--his food and drink are the liquid fire called whiskey; his associates are the scum and refuse of the city.

Mrs. Darcy, I wish you joy of your work!"

"Spare me," she faltered.

Mr. Gilbert looked silently for a moment at the bowed figure, then took his hat and turned to go.

"I beg your pardon," he said, very quietly. "I had no right to speak at all. My only excuse is, that I will not so offend again. How is Helen?"

"As she always is. She says nothing; she lies and suffers in silence.

Will you not see her?"

"Not to-day; it is painful to me; I can see it is painful to her, poor child. Good-afternoon, madam."

He bowed with formal coldness and was gone. So! she had had her revenge, but was the "game worth the candle" after all? Is revenge ever worth its cost, she began to wonder.

"Vengeance is mine, I will repay." Yes, yes, she was beginning to see it all? And--Christianity apart--revenge, as we wreak it, after our poor light, is so apt to recoil on ourselves.

So, Norine sits by the window now, thinking over this pleasant interview and "chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancies." Much more bitter than sweet. Until she had lost Richard Gilbert's good opinion utterly, she had never known how she prized it.

Presently glancing back from the darkening day without, at some lustier shout than usual of Master Laurie, she finds Helen's large, mournful eyes fixed upon her. She rises, crosses over, kneels down by the sofa, and kisses tenderly the wan cheek.

"My dear," she says, "what is it?"