please yourself whether you come with me or not, and I care little or nothing what your decision may be. Now, as I am busy, I shall be glad to be alone."

Mrs. Charlock crept from the studio to her own room. There were real tears in her eyes. She was trembling from head to foot with a sense of humiliation and disappointment. She no longer doubted what her husband had said. She knew that when John Charlock had made up his mind to a thing it was as good as done. And he was doing this deliberately, in order to spite her, to wound her most susceptible feelings, because she had made such a terrible mistake the night of the boy's death. He would not understand her point of view. She could not induce him to believe that she had never dreamt the end was so near. No mother would have gone away had she known what was likely to happen. And as to Charlock's debts, it would have been easy to retrench and wipe them off by degrees.

Mrs. Charlock crept from the studio to her own room. There were real tears in her eyes. She was trembling from head to foot with a sense of humiliation and disappointment. She no longer doubted what her husband had said. She knew that when John Charlock had made up his mind to a thing it was as good as done. And he was doing this deliberately, in order to spite her, to wound her most susceptible feelings, because she had made such a terrible mistake the night of the boy's death. He would not understand her point of view. She could not induce him to believe that she had never dreamt the end was so near. No mother would have gone away had she known what was likely to happen. And as to Charlock's debts, it would have been easy to retrench and wipe them off by degrees.

Kate Charlock wept as she looked about her. It was a beautiful house, luxuriously and artistically furnished. All Kate Charlock's friends envied her such a place.

Kate Charlock wept as she looked about her. It was a beautiful house, luxuriously and artistically furnished. All Kate Charlock's friends envied her such a place.

To give it up was an act of mean and cowardly vengeance. The thing would never have been thought of had the boy lived. It never occurred to the passionate, weeping woman that John Charlock valued his honour beyond his comfort, for there were scores of people in the smart set to which she belonged who never paid their debts at all. There were members of that charmed circle who boasted of this and were thought none the worse of.

To give it up was an act 

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