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 Pembroke's face was quite impassive, but his soul was not so impassive. It cost him much to withstand the entreaties of a woman—and a woman who fancied she had some claim upon him, although in the bottom of his heart, he knew that he had got more trouble, pain and annoyance from Elise Koller than he had pleasure by a great deal—more bad than good—more war than peace.

"Madame Volkonsky," he continued, after a pause, "you are putting your appeal on the wrong ground. You will find that your husband has been mercifully dealt with—and that mercy was for your sake alone. Had you married him in ignorance—but Elise, you knew him as well five years ago as now."

Pembroke feared that his tone did not convey his unalterable decision, but it did, indeed, to the unfortunate woman before him.

"There is no pity in the world," she began—and then kept on, gasping with hysterical excitement. "No pity at all. I thought that you at least had a heart—but you are as cold—I never asked for mercy in my life that I was not denied. Even when I humiliated myself before Olivia Berkeley."

In the midst of her own frenzy of despair, she saw something in Pembroke's face that forced her to stop there. She was trembling violently and gasping for breath. Every moment he thought she would break into cries and screams. He took her firmly by the arm and led her to a side door, and out to where the street was blocked with carriages.