"Reg, I am surprised at you talking like that," said Mrs. Whyte. "If Amy wished to stay with him, she—"
"Prefers him to me, is that it?" put in Reg, rising, and pacing the room, angrily.
"No, not that. I mean she is to blame."
"She's not to blame. If she had not met that fellow, there would have been no trouble."
"Come, come," said Whyte, anxious to make peace. "Let's get to bed; perhaps she will have forgotten all about it in the morning." And he led his wife away.
Reg did not go to bed, but walked restlessly to and from the garden to cool his heated brain and collect his thoughts. At last he entered his room, and casually picked up a copy of Truth to while away the time until he felt inclined for sleep. His eye happened to light on a paragraph drawing attention to the ruin of the prospects of a young actress by a gentleman "well-known in Society." No names were mentioned, but fuller details were promised. Had names been mentioned an amount of sorrow, with its appalling consequences, would have been saved and this story never have been written. At last Reg tumbled into bed, only to toss about and dream of dreadful accidents to Amy, with which Wyck was somehow connected, while he himself lay powerless to rescue her, fighting fiercely against the invisible hands which kept his hands tied, and his limbs stiff and helpless.
CHAPTER V.
THE OATH.
"Reg, Reg, get up," said Whyte, entering Morris's room the next morning.