"Geoffrey!" Ariadne cried now. "Oh, Geoffrey! you have come to me. I knew you would. Knew it so well. You could not stay away from me," she said, sinking her voice so that the gentle tones of it sounded even more sweet than usual, "when I wanted you to come. Oh, Geoffrey!" she sighed. "Actress!" he said inwardly, his face white--almost, it seemed, drawn. "Actress!" Then cursed himself for being there--for, in solemn truth being drawn to her against his will! But aloud, he said, so coldly that the tone struck like ice to her heart: "I am here because you desired to see me again; because, too, Heaven help me! you conjured me, lured me with those cunning words you wrote in your letter, 'the memory of the love of our early years.' Ay, our _early_ love. You did well to speak of that. That, at least, has been." "And can there be no other? Not when----" "Not until," he cried, his voice ringing clearly through the room, "not until you deal truthfully with me, if ever; not until you answer my question fairly as to that man--that bedizened fop--I encountered in your avenue!" "What do you ask? What do you desire to know?" "That you know as well as I. Yet once again. I ask you, did that man come to Fanshawe Manor; was he there by--my God!--by appointment with the Manor's owner: was he there to see--Ariadne Thorne?" For a moment the pure clear eyes gazed into his, then they dropped and sought the floor. "Yes," she whispered slowly, hesitatingly, "yes, he went there--to see--Ariadne Thorne----" "Ah!" he cried, "ah! I knew it. Knew it well from the moment I heard your whispered words to your woman. I knew it. Oh!" and now he, too, lifted his hand towards his heart as though to still it. "Oh! then thus all ends; thus I bid farewell to all our love. It is enough. To-morrow I resign my command----" "No! no!" she cried, and now she came swiftly towards him. "No! no! To-morrow! Not to-morrow! Until to-morrow at least is past--do nothing. Geoffrey! Geoffrey! I love you; fondly, madly! Not to-morrow, of all days! not to-morrow!" * * * * * * * "A long talk," muttered Mrs. Pottle, below stairs, "a long talk," and she glanced at the clock, which now struck seven even as she did so. "A long talk. She must 'a' bin telling of 'im all. Ah! poor sweet, I'll go bail she finds it pretty 'ard to do. Yet they're quiet, too. I don't hear no walking about. Surely they ain't a-quarrelling--surely"--for now her melodramatic mind, a mind perhaps attuned to such things by her own stormy life, imagined the worst--"he hasn't refused to believe her! hasn't--oh! oh! that's too terrible to think on." "I'll go up," she whispered to herself a moment later; "I will. I'll find an excuse for busting in upon them. I'm getting the 'orrors what with Sir Jaffray being 'ere and what with thinking of all that's to do to-morrow."