The whole tragical tangle, blurred and distorted by incessant repetition, had come at last to seem almost a separate entity; a horror, outside his own control, that now shrank to a pin-point and now loomed gigantic, oppressive, till all true sense of proportion was lost. The silence that he could not force himself to break, infallibly made matters worse. And now came Honor, re-awakening the great love he had wrestled with and trampled on to very small purpose; a love beside which his chivalrous tenderness for Evelyn showed like the flame of a candle in the blaze of noon. Her sudden return, the perturbing sense of her nearness, had for the first time wrenched him away from the obsession of the past. But even now he dared not frankly face the future; dared not let his mind dwell on the colourless emptiness of life without her. Neither could he, as yet, face the only alternative--to tell her, of all women, that he had loved her before his wife's death. Besides, there was Paul, who obviously cared, in his own repressed fashion, and who must not be baulked of his chance. Yet to-night, as he tramped the whole round of that rocky headland--in the glow of a sky rippled by now with feathers of flame--his blood was in a fever for sheer desire of her, and he cursed the folly that had impelled him to refuse the morning's golden opportunity. Returning later, in a more chastened mood, he found Wyndham sitting still as a statue, seemingly forgetful of his existence; and of a sudden his heart contracted at thought of his friend's inexhaustible patience, his unquestioning acceptance of moods to which he did not hold the key. Stepping lightly, Desmond came up behind him and laid both hands on his shoulders. "Forgive me, old man. I didn't precisely mean all that----" Wyndham scarcely started. "I thought as much! Don't apologise!" he said, looking up with his slow smile. "It was a pure pleasure to hear you swear again!" Desmond laughed abruptly. "You'll get more than enough of that kind of pleasure if they refuse me my six months!--But look here, I'm thinking I can't keep _you_ away from them any longer----" "My dear Theo," Paul interposed with gentle decision. "So long as you stay--I stay. That goes without saying. Meredith will fix it up for us--no fear. Come on now. It's time we went indoors." They sauntered back up the gravel path together without further speech, yet with thoughts more closely linked than either guessed; thoughts that flew instinctively as homing doves to the one beloved woman--Honor Meredith. II.