He could hear her hollow cough as she passed down the tesselated corridor.     

       CHAPTER VI.     

       It was two days later. Sir John Chetwynd sat in his big easy chair with an open letter before him. "We are surprised to have seen and heard nothing of you," wrote the Duchess; "more especially as after the few words we had in private upon a certain important matter, I fully anticipated an early visit from you. But such a busy man as yourself and one so much in request, both socially and professionally, must not be judged by the rules       which govern the common herd, I suppose; at the same time       (although I assure you she has not said a word upon the subject)       I can say that dear Ethel feels herself a wee bit neglected. You must have been professionally engaged last night, I presume, since we were obliged to dine without you and go to see Sarah Bernhardt alone."     

       He had spent the whole evening in his consulting rooms, totally forgetting his promise to escort his fiancée and her mother to the theatre.     

       Well, he would see them both on the morrow and make his peace,       and then—he dropped his head on his hands and fairly groaned. It was useless to argue with himself, to bring commonsense to bear upon the point, to count up the advantages to be derived from this union with Lady Ethel; look at it which way he would, the fact remained the same, that he had no longer the remotest desire to marry again.     

       The knowledge had certainly come tardily, but not the less surely.     

       He did not, he told himself, love Lady Ethel as a man should love the wife of his bosom. Middle-aged, worn, and unemotional though       he might be, he knew that he was yet capable of a much deeper feeling than she had evoked and he had wakened to a realisation of this since he had again seen Bella.     

       He was no fool; he was, on the contrary, a shrewd, clever, quick-witted man of the world and it was impossible to shut his eyes to the trouble. He thought of Bella as she was when he had first married her; he recalled their courtship, her pretty half shy, half tender ways—the girlish prettiness which time had turned into shame.     

       She had left a scrap of lace on his table 

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