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 the supper-table being too thin and glimmering to interfere with its glow.

‘I am so sorry you should have heard this sad story about the girls,’ he said. ‘Still, don’t let it depress you. Retty was naturally morbid, you know.’

‘Without the least cause,’ said Tess. ‘While they who have cause to be, hide it, and pretend they are not.’

This incident had turned the scale for her. They were simple and innocent girls on whom the unhappiness of unrequited love had fallen; they had deserved better at the hands of Fate. She had deserved worse—yet she was the chosen one. It was wicked of her to take all without paying. She would pay to the uttermost farthing; she would tell, there and then. This final determination she came to when she looked into the fire, he holding her hand.

A steady crimson glare from the now flameless embers painted the sides and back of the fireplace with its colour, and the well-polished andirons, and the old brass tongs that would not meet. The underside of the mantel-shelf was flushed with the blood-coloured light, and the legs of the