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“He’s married?” gasped Marion.

The manager laughed scornfully.

“He drinks, my dear lady. He drinks. He’s only just out of an inebriates’ home. But don’t alarm yourself. If he’s watched, I dare say we shall manage all right. I hope to goodness we shall! Don’t look so scared. Smith has charge of him, and he is accustomed to the job. He was quite sober last night. I hear he always is after an outbreak. You’re going home? Well, I think you’re right. Yes, very cold here now. Quite right not to stop. See you again later.”

Marion drove home and shut herself up in her room. There was no need to lock the door. She was alone in the world, alone in her handsome, empty house, where she had always been alone, even before her aunt died and left it to her…. She would always be alone now. Only yesterday she had hoped–what had she not hoped! She had seen him there in imagination changing this weary house into a home, brilliant and faulty as ever, lovable as ever, beloved as ever, surrounded by her lavished adoration. She had seen their children running along its wide passages, playing in its empty hall.

And now.

He drank.

She shuddered. She had seen drink once. She knew. Never while she lived would she forget what her home had been like. The past crowded back upon her with all its vileness and nausea, all its unspeakable degradation and violence, wrapped up with maudlin sentiment and cheap tears. The sweat stood on her forehead.

What an escape she had had! To think that if it had not been for that chance word of the manager’s she would by now have pledged herself irrevocably to a drunkard, waded back into the slough from which she had emerged. Oh, what a merciful fate it had been, after all, which had parted them! How faithless she had been all these years! How little she had realised how the divine love and wisdom had watched over her, had shielded her!

“Oh! thank God! Thank God!” she groaned. The other self in her, the poor dying woman in her, arose on her deathbed and screamed to her, screamed insane things. If a certain voice is too long ignored, its dictates seem at last insane.

“Take him back all the same!” gasped the dying voice. “Marry him. Devote yourself to him, day and night. Cure him. Set him up. You love him. Love can do it, if anything can.”

“I can’t do it,” groaned Marion. “Mother tried, but it was no good.”

“Then do as she did, try and fail.”

“I can’t. He would break my heart.”

“Let him break it.”

Marion strangled the terrible, urgent voice with fury, and then cried as if her heart would indeed break. The silenced voice spoke no more.

* * * * *

The play was a great success. Delacour, who had recently returned from America, was the making of it. Lenore was the first to acknowledge it, though his success was at her expense. Her part seemed only as a foil to the sombre splendour of his.

The play ran and ran.

Delacour made no further effort to speak to Marion. He avoided her systematically. He, on his side, was watched, was spied on, was protected from himself, was never given a chance of yielding to temptation. His self-imposed gaoler loved him. He was very lovable. The manager was enthusiastic. Ignorant people said he was reformed. It almost seemed as if he might grasp the great position to which his talent entitled him. But how often before he had fallen just when he was doing well! No one could depend on him. His record in America gradually became known. It was a record of hideous outbreaks and cancelled engagements.