Turquand would not be back for some hours, and Kent did not hurry home. He sauntered through the streets reflecting. He resolved that now he would do ghost-work no more, and he wondered how Eva would receive the announcement. Disappointing as she would doubtless find it, she would not have had much to complain of, he thought; he congratulated himself anew on their liaison having ended, since it left him but one association to sever, instead of two. Again an access of remorse in its most poignant form assailed him, and he wished he could bear his good news to Cynthia in lieu of writing it--wished he could confess to Cynthia--wondered if the desire to do so was mad. This desire had fastened on Kent more than once. He thought he would feel less guilty towards her--would _be_ less guilty towards her--if she knew. There had been moments when, if they had not been separated, he would have told her the truth in a burst, and, whether she pardoned him or not, have lifted his head, feeling happier for the fact that the avowal had been made. He did not imagine that his craving to confess to her was any shining virtue. He was conscious, just as he had been conscious in Paris, when he had informed her casually of the supper in the avenue Wagram, that it was as much the weakness of his character as its nobility which urged him to voice the load that lay on his mind; but, weak or noble, the longing was always there, and at times it mastered him completely. Sleet began to fall, and he went into a tea-room and ordered some coffee. A copy of _Fashion_ lay on the table, and, mechanically turning the pages, he noticed that the feature of the issue was an instalment of a story in three parts by Lady Cornwallis. The name arrested his attention, for she was the widow of a man who had been a connection of the late Deane-Pitt's, and Kent was aware that Eva and she were on friendly terms. He glanced at the heading with an ironical smile; the lady was not known to him as an author, though she had figured prominently of late in the witness-box, where a shrewd solicitor, and a dressmaker of distinction, had posed her in a quite romantic light; he surmised bitterly that her maiden effort in fiction had been remunerated more handsomely than his second novel. What was his astonishment, on glancing at the opening paragraph, to discover that the story "By Lady Cornwallis" was another of the stories that had been written by himself for Mrs. Deane-Pitt!