"Don't go away," she murmured brokenly. "I couldn't bear it! I promise you that Jane shall never know. Don't leave me with Dick and Richard--they've both been kinder--indeed, indeed they have--since you've been here, Hew----" He eagerly assured her that he would stay. Flight was a cowardly expedient at best, and the feeling he intended henceforth to cherish for Athena Maule was nothing of which he need be ashamed. It was a high, a noble feeling of compassion and respect. It was well, nay most fortunate, that they had had this explanation; henceforth they would be friends. The very touch of her cool hands resting so confidingly in his, had driven forth certain black devils from his heart--made him indeed once more true to Jane,--Jane who, if she knew all, would understand. For there were things Athena had told him of her life with Richard which Jane did not know,--things which it was not desirable Jane should ever know, and which had filled him with an infinite compassion for Richard's young, beautiful wife. When Lingard bade her good-night, he resisted the temptation, the curiously strong temptation, of asking Mrs. Maule if she would allow him to kiss her feet. CHAPTER X "The passion of love has a danger for very sensitive, reserved and concentrated minds unknown to creatures of more volatile, expansive and unreflective dispositions." Dick Wantele walked with swinging nervous strides up and down the short platform of the little country station of Redyford. He had already been there some time, for the local train run in connection with the London express was late. But he was in no hurry--there would always be time to tell Jane that she would not see her lover for some hours. Mrs. Maule had taken General Lingard over to the Paches to lunch. It was a small matter, an altogether unimportant matter, and it was certainly no business of Wantele's to care about it one way or the other. And yet he did care. He was jealous for Jane in a way she never would be for herself. And then--and then Lingard had allowed himself to be bamboozled--no other word so well expressed it--as to the time of Jane's arrival. It had happened at breakfast. "Mrs. Pache is expecting us--you and me--over to lunch," Athena said to Lingard. And Wantele had cut in--"Jane is coming this morning." "No, indeed she isn't! We shall be back long before she arrives," and then Athena had gone on, addressing no one in particular, "Jane is the most casual person in the world----" Lingard, throwing back his head with a quizzical look on his face, had exclaimed, "Yes, that's one of the good things about her." He had shot out the words as a sword leaps from its scabbard. There had followed a moment of silence. And then Athena had broken out into eager praise of Jane--eager, inconsequent praise. But for once Hew Lingard had seemed indifferent, hardly aware of the sound of her voice.