And you, Zara, yourself, dear child, can nothing be done for you and Tristram ?" At the mention of her husband's name Zara looked up, startled; and then a deeper tragedy than ever gathered in her eyes, as she rose.
"Let us speak of that no more, my uncle," she said.

"Nothing can be done, because his love for me is dead.

I killed it myself, in my ignorance.

Nothing you or I can do is of any avail now--it is all too late." And Francis Markrute could not speak.

Her ignorance had been his fault, his only mistake in calculation, because he had played with souls as pawns in those days before love had softened him.