"I have gone to London," Fairfax's note ran. "Sell anything of mine you like before I get back, if you are hard up.--TONY." He spent two pounds on a pistol. If he had chanced to meet Cedersholm with her, he would have shot him. From the hour he had received her letter and learned that she was going to marry Cedersholm, he had been hardly sane. At five o'clock on a bland, sweet afternoon, three days after he had left Paris, he was shown up to her sitting-room at the Whiteheart Hotel, in Windsor. He had traced her there from the Ritz. Mary Faversham, who was alone, rose to meet him, white as death. "Tony," she said, "don't come nearer--stand there, Tony. Dear Tony, it is too late, too late!" He limped across the room and took her in his arms, looking at her wildly. Her lips trembled, her eyes filled. "I married him by special license yesterday, Tony. Go, go, before he comes." He saw she could not stand. He put her in a chair, fell on his knees and buried his head in her lap. He clung to her, to the Woman, to his Vision of the Woman, to the form, the substance, the reality which he thought at last he had really caught for ever. She bent over him and kissed his hair, weeping. "Go," she said. "Go, my darling." Fairfax had not spoken a word. Curses, invectives, prayers were in his heart. He crushed them down. "I love you for your pride," she said. "I adore you for the brave demand you made me. I could not fulfil it, Tony, for your sake." Then he spoke, and meant what he said, "You have ruined my life." "Oh no!" she cried. "Don't say such a thing!" "Some day I shall kill him." He had risen, with tears in his eyes. "You loved me," he challenged, "you did love me!" She did not dare to say "I love you still." She saw what the tragedy would be. "We could not have been poor," she said, "could we, dear?" He exclaimed bitterly, "If you thought of that, you could not have cared." And she was strong enough to take advantage of his change. "I suppose I could not have cared as you mean, or I should never have done this." Then Fairfax cursed under his breath, and once again, this time brutally, caught her in his arms and kissed her, crying to her as he had cried once before-- "Tell him how I kissed you--tell him!" White as death, Mary Faversham pushed him from her. "For the love of God, Tony, go!" And he went, stumbling down the stairs. Out in Windsor the bugles for some solemn festivity were blowing. "The flowers of the forest are all wied away." BOOK IV BELLA CHAPTER I From the Western world he heard nothing for four years. Meanwhile he brought his new skill, his maturer knowledge, the result of seven years' study and creation in the workshops of masters and in his own studio, to the sculpturing of the second tomb--the Open Door.