An hour later he was reposing with his head on Mary’s knees, and she, with an affectionate solicitude that was wholly maternal, was running her fingers through his tangled hair. He had told her everything, everything: his hopeless love, his jealousy, his despair, his suicide--as it were providentially averted by her interposition. He had solemnly promised never to think of self-destruction again. And now his soul was floating in a sad serenity. It was embalmed in the sympathy that Mary so generously poured. And it was not only in receiving sympathy that Denis found serenity and even a kind of happiness; it was also in giving it. For if he had told Mary everything about his miseries, Mary, reacting to these confidences, had told him in return everything, or very nearly everything, about her own. “Poor Mary!” He was very sorry for her. Still, she might have guessed that Ivor wasn’t precisely a monument of constancy. “Well,” she concluded, “one must put a good face on it.” She wanted to cry, but she wouldn’t allow herself to be weak. There was a silence. “Do you think,” asked Denis hesitatingly--“do you really think that she...that Gombauld...” “I’m sure of it,” Mary answered decisively. There was another long pause. “I don’t know what to do about it,” he said at last, utterly dejected. “You’d better go away,” advised Mary. “It’s the safest thing, and the most sensible.” “But I’ve arranged to stay here three weeks more.” “You must concoct an excuse.” “I suppose you’re right.” “I know I am,” said Mary, who was recovering all her firm self-possession. “You can’t go on like this, can you?” “No, I can’t go on like this,” he echoed. Immensely practical, Mary invented a plan of action. Startlingly, in the darkness, the church clock struck three. “You must go to bed at once,” she said. “I’d no idea it was so late.” Denis clambered down the ladder, cautiously descended the creaking stairs. His room was dark; the candle had long ago guttered to extinction. He got into bed and fell asleep almost at once. CHAPTER XXX. Denis had been called, but in spite of the parted curtains he had dropped off again into that drowsy, dozy state when sleep becomes a sensual pleasure almost consciously savoured. In this condition he might have remained for another hour if he had not been disturbed by a violent rapping at the door. “Come in,” he mumbled, without opening his eyes. The latch clicked, a hand seized him by the shoulder and he was rudely shaken. “Get up, get up!” His eyelids blinked painfully apart, and he saw Mary standing over him, bright-faced and earnest. “Get up!” she repeated. “You must go and send the telegram. Don’t you remember?” “O Lord!” He threw off the bed-clothes; his tormentor retired.