"Will it hurt you greatly to leave it, dear?" he asked, prefacing the inevitable with question of her will to do so. "Just as much as it will hurt you. No more or less," she answered, her head against his arm. "But I am glad it is so good to leave." "That's my mind, too. How do you know what I mean, though?" "I've always known it must come, Christopher." She spoke low and looked away, weakly hoping for the moment he would leave it at that, but Christopher never left uncertain points behind him. "You knew I should come to take this other work--this inheritance?" She nodded. He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to him. "Why didn't you tell me so, Patricia?" "I was so sure you would know yourself. I hated to be the one to speak," her voice shook a little. "Oh, forgive me, Christopher, dearest," she cried suddenly, "it was weak of me, for I did know always, only I wanted all this for a little time so badly. Just a taste of the beautiful good life you had planned. I thought it would not matter, just two years." He put his arms round her and drew her close. "We have had it, beloved. It has been beyond anything I ever dreamt. Only--" his voice broke a little, "we must remember it had to be paid for--No, no," he cried, seeing the wave of sorrow sweep over her face, "not you. It is I who should have known and listened. My fault!" "It is I who should have spoken," she said steadily, "we can't divide ourselves even in this, dear, but we can bear it together." "And pay the debt together," he added and raised her face to his and kissed her. And they crossed the Threshold of the New with this understanding between them. CHAPTER XXXVI In the great buildings in Princes Street, Birmingham, the days continued as of old, with the ebb and flow of business. On each floor clerks bent over their high desks and the workers of each concern sat behind their mahogany defences and toiled early and late for the treasure they desired. At stated times rows of grave gentlemen, who carried due notice of their own importance on their countenances, met in the respective committee rooms, and discussed wide interests with closed doors and a note of anxious irritation that was new since the demise of Peter Masters. He who had concentrated the whole of the executive business of these many affairs under one roof had done so of definite purpose and with no eye to merely his own convenience. His presence there was a tangible power offering a final court of appeal that, whether they knew it or not, had as great an effect on the various committees as it had on the managers of each business themselves. So perfect was the organisation and adjustment of the machinery of routine that after the dominant visible power had gone down to the land of shadows, the vague note of personal anxiety that lurked on each floor was the only perceptible change apparent in the great body.