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Rh supper came in. Something in Tempest's voice made him uneasy, and brought up sternly in his mind again the knowledge which he had been avoiding with all his strength. He faced that knowledge to-night in his usual clear-sightedness, and it made him wince.

He had gone into this game with Andree in the primal direct motive of taking her from Tempest since he could not take Tempest from her. He had lost sight of that motive long since. His primal idea now was to amuse himself. He did not love Andree. Jennifer had all his heart, and she always would have it. But Andree's beauty attracted him, and her wild spirit struck a flame from the like thing in himself. He did not love Andree, but he was losing Jennifer for her. She was dulling memory of Jennifer's pure high thoughts and words. He had not written to Jennifer lately, and well he knew why. And Andree was losing him Tempest. She was destroying in him the power to say to Tempest, "I did this for you alone." She was destroying in him the power to help Tempest along that road which he should travel, and, by so doing, it might be that Tempest would never take that road. He knew Tempest's nature so well. That fine, nervous, excitable temperament could be so easily broken by certain things; so easily battered down on its knees. Dick did not believe that Tempest would ever go lower than his knees. But he would stay there, bowing his head in his repentance. He would take the lower place for ever, when Nature and the world ordained him for the higher.

And Dick was daily stripping from himself the right to help Tempest to take that higher place. He was doing more. He was prolonging the torment which he had set out to end. Any time in the last three months he could have brought this to a crisis for Tempest. Any time before the last month—perhaps the last six weeks, he could have said honestly to Tempest, "I am doing this for you." He could not say that now. He was afraid to tell Tempest now, because there were no honest words which he could use. He was dishonourable; a traitor to his friend, and he knew it. And yet self had sapped the will in him for so long that he could not resist it. Jennifer and Tempest meant many thousand times more to him than An-