Weaker men pay allegiance readily enough to the passion under whose sway they happen to rest. Geff was loyal, with a fine, a rare fidelity to the love that had passed away. He was Dinah’s brother always. And the story of Saturday’s rose-show told him, late that evening, by Dinah’s lips, sufficed to fill him with a more than vague misgiving. He had wished often, thinking over the difficult question of her welfare in his rough-and-ready way, that Dinah could be forcibly saved from solitude and cross-stitch. Lo! the rescuer was at hand. But that rescuer, Geoffrey Arbuthnot’s common sense informed him, should be a very different Galahad to Lord Rex Basire. Acting on the moment’s impulse, Marjorie Bartrand had made a tentative effort at lifting Gaston’s wife into the fellowship of her kind. And the experiment was too successful. Dinah, so Geff divined, had scarcely taken one step in public, before the little hero of a lesser hour, the most popular man in his regiment, the most sought-after partner at the island balls, thought fit, the world looking on, to throw himself at her feet. ‘And did you find pleasure in it all? Did you for a single moment feel amused to-day?’ Something in Geoffrey’s voice suggested a sharper note of interrogation than was supplied by his words. Dinah and Geff stood together on the same spot of lawn where we first heard the Arbuthnot trio talking of sentiment while they breakfasted. Gaston was dining out, whether at the Fort-William mess or at Doctor Thorne’s house Dinah had not sought to know. Of what avail to ask for truth when you have once been answered with a fable, no matter how prettily that fable was illustrated? ‘I was pleased for a time. Gaston showed no anger at my coming. It amused me to hear Lord Rex Basire talking down, as he thought, to my rustic understanding. Then without warning,’ Dinah turned away; she looked at the pale horizon line of sea, ‘I had a few moments’ horrible pain.’ ‘You were ill!’ exclaimed Geoffrey, uncertain of her drift. ‘No, Geff, no. I don’t mean such pain as people consult the doctors for. The pain was at my heart--a sickening doubt of every one--a feeling that I stood on one side and all the rest of the world on the other--a sudden despair of life! Geoffrey,’ she went on, ‘with the gay people walking about, and the flowers smelling sweet, and the music playing, it did seem to me for a few seconds’ space that my heart must break.’ ‘And on which side did you range me in your thoughts? Was I with you or with all the rest of the world?’ asked Geoffrey Arbuthnot.