Cassandra returned home to fight her battle hour after hour with weary reiteration. In her mind was one predominating determination,--to be loyal to the son she had borne, and to bring no shame upon his name, but against the cold rock of that decision dashed the waves of a passionate desire. She was starving for love, and the gates of her woman's kingdom stood open entreating her entrance. All that she had longed for, all that she had dreamt, was waiting for her; the lifting of a hand would bring it to pass. Duty faced passion in grim stolidity; passion lashed itself in fury, only to fall abashed before that impenetrable front. Cassandra had sufficient strength to hold fast to her determination; sufficient weakness to regret its power, and to long, wildly, weakly, overwhelmingly for courage to throw everything to the winds, and snatch her hour of joy. Grizel had prophesied that the joy would be but of an hour, that continued happiness was impossible under wrong conditions, and in her heart Cassandra acknowledged the truth. Both Dane and herself had lived their lives in an atmosphere of convention and morality; they were not the stuff to defy the world, and live undaunted by snubs and chills. The first wild rapture would be succeeded by mutual loneliness, mutual remorse. On each would press a burden of responsibility for that other dear wrecked life. Cassandra acknowledged the inevitability of regret, in imagination lived through it, saw the cloud on Dane's face, felt the cramp at her own heart, but even so... even so... they would have had their hour! If the ship were sunk, there would be treasure saved from the wreck. Better to sail forth for the high seas, facing dauntlessly tempest and fire, than to spend the whole of life in a backwater, anchored to a stone! So the battle waged, hour after hour in weary repetition. Cassandra fought vainly to sink the woman in the mother, and resurrect the old thrills of devotion. She thought of the baby who had lain in her arms, the little cooing, kicking cherub who had been the light of her eyes; she thought of the first toddling steps, of the first coherent word, of the first, the very first time that the little arms stretched out, of the little dimpled baby splashing in a bath. One by one she recalled the landmarks sweet to a mother's heart, but before them all, veiling them like a cloud, stood the image of a stolid, freckled-face boy in an Eton suit, a boy who signed his letters "Raynor," considered affection bad form, and preferred to spend the "hols" visiting other fellows' homes. It was not for the adorable baby of old, but for the Eton-suited boy of to-day that she was to sacrifice her love!