Jane looked at Athena without speaking; she was telling herself that Hew could not help being enthralled--that no man could have helped it. She had never seen her friend look as lovely as she looked to-night; and there was a pathetic, a very appealing expression on the beautiful face now bending over her.

Mrs. Maule kissed Jane Oglander.

Then she straightened herself.

"I can't sleep because I keep thinking of all you told me this morning,"

she said at last. "I know you don't want to talk about it, and yet--and yet I feel I must tell you that what you told me is making me wretched, Jane. Are you sure that you really wish to break off your engagement?"

Jane was very pale; she was spent with suffering, and yet, as Athena saw with a pang of envy, she looked very young; her fair hair lay in two long thick plaits, one on each side of her face. It was that perhaps which made her look so young, so placid--so defenceless.

"It seems to me the only thing I can do," she spoke in a very low voice, but to the woman listening she seemed irritatingly calm.

Athena climbed on to Jane's bed, as she had so often done in the days when she and Jane happened to be at Rede Place together--days which had come far oftener four and five years ago than recently.

It hurt Jane to see Athena there. The contrast between the past and the present cut so shrewdly. She did not wish to judge her friend--or rather she did judge her, and very leniently.

Athena could not help what had happened. Of that Jane felt sure. But still Athena must know the truth--she could not but be aware of the effect she had had on Lingard; she must know that without meaning it she had witched his heart away.

But whatever Athena knew or did not know, any allusion to what had happened would be degrading to them both. Certain things slumber when left in peace; they leap into life if once discussed. Jane Oglander believed in the honour of the man she loved. Hew would go away, and in time he would batten down, fight and conquer his infatuation for Mrs.

Maule.

"Of course I wish to break my engagement. But I would rather not talk about it," she said, at last.

"But I must talk about it!" cried Athena desperately. "You don't realise how I feel, Jane, how--how miserable, how ashamed I am about it all! Of course I know how you must be hating me."

An expression of anguish came over the younger woman's face. She believed her friend. But deep in her heart was breathed the inarticulate prayer: "Oh G.o.d, do not let her mention Hew--do not let her speak of Hew!"

Athena suddenly covered her face with her hands. "Oh, Jane, I could not help it," she wailed, in her low, vibrating voice. "Oh, Jane, tell me that you know I could not help it!"

"I know you could not help it," repeated Jane mechanically.

She was being tortured,--tortured with a singular refinement of cruelty.

But even now she did not blame Athena. Athena had meant kindly by her in coming here to-night. But oh! if she would only go away. It was agony to Jane to see her there.

"He respects you!" whispered Mrs. Maule, leaning forward. "He admires you! He esteems you! Oh, Jane, I should feel proud if any man spoke of me as he speaks of you----"

But Jane did not feel proud. Jane felt humiliated to the dust. During the many miserable hours she had spent in the last fortnight, she had been spared the hateful suspicion that Hew Lingard ever spoke of her to Athena Maule.

And indeed Lingard had never so spoken, yet the strange thing was that Athena, when uttering those lying words, half believed them to be true.

In the first days of her acquaintance with Lingard, she had herself said many kind, warm, affectionate things of Jane Oglander, to which he had perforce a.s.sented. It now pleased her to imagine, and even more to say, that it was he who had spoken those words of praise, of liking, of warm but unlover-like affection....

"If you only knew how he feels," she went on rapidly, "you would feel sorry for him, Jane, deeply sorry; not, as you have a right to feel, angry--angry both with him and with me! I'm afraid--I know, that often he feels wretched--horribly wretched about it all."

"I am very sorry," said Jane Oglander in a low voice, "sorry, not--not angry, Athena----" and then she stopped short.

"Sorry" seemed a poor, inadequate word, but it was the only word she could find. Her heart was wrung with sorrow, with unavailing, useless sorrow for both these unhappy people, as well as for herself. Judging them by what she would have felt had she been either of them, she believed them to be very miserable.

Athena was now huddled up on the bed. She was crying bitterly, her face hidden in her hands, the tears trickling through the fingers. She was dreadfully, dreadfully sorry for herself.

Jane Oglander could not see anyone as unhappy and as abased as she believed her friend to be feeling, and make no attempt at consolation.

Bending forward, she put out her arms and gathered to her the slender rounded shoulders, the beautiful dark head.

"If only something could be done," she whispered, "if only there was a way out, Athena!"

Athena Maule raised her tear-stained face. Her moment had at last come.

"There is a way out," she said slowly, impressively.

She put the palms of her hands on the other woman's breast--"Tell me, Jane, would it make you very unhappy, would you ever be able to forgive me--if I married Hew Lingard?"

Jane looked at her with troubled eyes. "I don't understand," she faltered. "Do you mean when--when Richard is dead, Athena?"

"No. Of course I don't mean that! What a horrible idea! But, Jane, there is a chance that I may become free. It is difficult to explain, but you may believe me when I tell you that if Richard were a different kind of man, if he was n.o.ble, if he was high-minded, as you are n.o.ble and high-minded----" Jane shook her head.

"Yes, you are--you are----What was I saying? Yes: if Richard were different he could have given me my freedom long ago, and our marriage could be dissolved even now."

As the younger woman made no movement, said no word, only went on looking at her in puzzled silence, Athena drew herself out of Jane's arms, and there came a look of impatience over her face.

"You are not a child! Surely you know what I mean, Jane? You must have heard of marriages being annulled? Richard has kept me tied to him all these years--years that I might have been free."

And, again, the strange thing was that Athena Maule, as she said those words, believed them--with certain mental reservations--to be true. It was certainly true that for the last eight years she, a pa.s.sionate, living woman, had been tied to death in life.

She would have been shocked, angered, had any still small voice reminded her that the scheme she was now determined to carry through was a new scheme, one that she had never considered seriously till now, though she had told the lie which was the keystone of her scheme so often that she had at last begun to believe it must be true.

"Oh, Jane!" she cried, and then she slipped off the bed and threw herself on her knees. "Oh, Jane, there is only one person in the world to whom Richard will ever listen----No, I'm wrong--there are two--there's d.i.c.k as well as you. But d.i.c.k"--a look of hatred for a moment convulsed her face--"d.i.c.k loathes me," she said slowly, "even more than Richard does," and this was true.

"You, Jane, are my only hope--mine and Hew's only hope----"

"Do you mean," said Jane slowly, "that you want me to speak to Richard, Athena,--to suggest his taking this step?"

For the first time Jane Oglander felt a touch of physical repulsion from Athena. It was a curious sensation, and one which troubled her exceedingly.

"Richard would have to do nothing--nothing! Simply leave my suit undefended. And if you could bring yourself to speak to him, Jane, I honestly believe that he might do now what he ought to have done long ago--release me. Nothing can give me back the years--the long miserable years I have spent with him, but I should at least have the future----"

She looked furtively at Jane. It would be so much more--well, comfortable, if she and Lingard could count on Jane's approval, on her blessing, as it were.

Jane Oglander lay back and turned her face away, to the wall. Athena, with remarkable self-control, stilled her eager, impulsive tongue. But the moments of waiting seemed very long.

At last Jane turned and once more sat up. She had made up her mind that it was her duty--her duty, not only to Athena, but also to Hew Lingard,--to do this difficult, this repulsive thing which was being required of her.

"I will speak to Richard to-morrow, Athena--but if he is shocked, if he is hurt by what I shall say to him--and I fear he will be both--you must not expect me ever to come back to Rede Place."

Mrs. Maule gave a little cry. It was only now that she realised how doubtful she had been of success. She might have known Jane better. Jane had always been her one loyal friend. Athena was fond of the word "loyal."

"Oh, Jane," she said humbly, "I--I don't know how to thank you. Will you mind very much?"

"You mustn't be surprised if I fail," Jane said slowly.