Save for the white marble presences about them they were alone, alone for the first time since that brief moment of dual solitude in the railway carriage when Lingard had looked at her in cold, mute apology for the scene he had provoked, and which she had perforce witnessed. The door of the room they were approaching opened, and a man-servant came out with a covered dish in his hand. "My husband is not quite ready for us," Athena spoke a little breathlessly. She felt excited, wrought up to a high pitch of emotion. For once Chance, the fickle goddess, was on her side. "Shall we wait here a few moments?" She led him aside into a deep recess. Then, when the servant's footsteps had died away, she turned her face up to him and Lingard saw that her beautiful mouth was quivering with feeling, her eyes suffused with tears. So might Andromeda have stood before Perseus when at last unloosened from the cruel rock, the living, eloquent embodiment of passionate and innocent shame. "I want to thank you----" she whispered. "And--and--let me tell you this. Simply to know that there is in this base, hateful world a man who could do what you did for a woman unknown to him, has altered my life, given me courage to go on!" Mrs. Maule spoke the truth as far as the truth was in her to speak. The incident in the railway carriage had powerfully moved and excited her; she had thought of little else even after Jane Oglander's letter announcing her engagement had come to divert the current of her life. Nay, the news conveyed in Jane's letter had brought with it the explanation of what had happened. Athena had leapt instinctively on the truth. Her unknown friend--her noble defender--could have been no other than General Lingard himself, on his way to stay with the Paches. It was Athena Maule, in her character of Jane Oglander's dearest friend, who had made the quixotic stranger's sword spring from its scabbard. The knowledge had stung; but she was now engaged in drawing the venom out of the sting. It was surely her right to make this remarkable, this famous man value and respect her for herself--not simply for Jane's sake. "I wish I could have killed the cur!" Lingard's voice was low, but his face had become fierce, tense--the face of a fighter in the thick of battle. Mrs. Maule was filled with a feeling of exquisite satisfaction. Once more she found life worth living.... But General Lingard must not be allowed to forget Jane Oglander, Athena's friend--Athena's almost sister--the one woman who loved and admired her whole-heartedly, unquestioningly. "Because of what you did the other day, and--and because of Jane"--her voice shook with excitement--"we must be friends, General Lingard." She held out her hand, and Lingard, taking the slender fingers in his, wrung Athena's hand, and then with a sudden, rather awkward movement he raised it to his lips. "And now we must go on," she said quietly. "Richard is waiting for us."