He said, quietly: "Nothing is surer than that you and I, one day, shall face our destiny together. I really care nothing for custom, law, or folk-way, or dogma, excepting only for your sake. Outside of that, man's folk-ways, man's notions of God, mean nothing to me: only my own intelligence and belief appeal to me. I must guide myself." "Guide me, too," she said. "For I have come into a wisdom which dismays me." He nodded and looked down, calmly, at the two men who had not stirred from the shadow of the foliage. She rose to her feet, hesitated, slowly stretched out her hand, then, on impulse, pressed it lightly against his lips. "That demonstration," she said with a troubled laugh, "is to be our limit. Good night. You will try to sleep, won't you?... And if I am now suddenly learning to be a little shy with you--you will not mistake me; will you?... Because it may seem silly at this late date.... But, somehow, everything comes late to me--even love, and its lesser lore and its wisdom and its cunning. So, if I ever seem indifferent--don't doubt me, Clive.... Good night." * * * * * When she had entered her room and closed the door he went downstairs, swiftly, let himself out of the house, and moved straight toward the garden. Neither of the men seemed very greatly surprised; both retreated with docile alacrity across the lawn to the driveway gate. "Anyway," said the taller man, good-humouredly, "you've got to hand it to us, Mr. Bailey. I guess we pinch the goods on you all right this time. What about it?" But Clive silently locked the outer gates, then turned and stared at the shadowy house as though it had suddenly crumbled into ruins there under the July moon. CHAPTER XXIV A fine lace-work of mist lay over the salt meadows; the fairy trilling of the little owl had ceased. Marsh-fowl were sleepily astir; the last firefly floated low into the shrouded bushes and its lamp glimmered a moment and went out. Where the east was growing grey long lines of wild-ducks went stringing out to sea; a few birds sang loudly in meadows still obscure; cattle in foggy upland pastures were awake. When the first cock-crow rang, cow-bells had been clanking for an hour or more; the rising sun turned land and sea to palest gold; every hedge and thicket became noisy with birds; bay-men stepped spars and hoisted sail, and their long sweeps dripped liquid fire as they pulled away into the blinding glory of the east. And Clive rose wearily from his window chair, care-worn and haggard, with nothing determined, nothing solved of this new and imminent peril which was already menacing Athalie with disgrace and threatening him with that unwholesome notoriety which men usually survive but under which a woman droops and perishes.