His hoarse voice dropped. They came simultaneously, involuntarily to a standstill. Constance was shaken by alternate waves of feeling. Half of what he said seemed to her insolent sophistry; but there was something else which touched—which paralysed her. For the first time she knew that this had been no mere game she had been playing with Douglas Falloden. Just as Falloden in his careless selfishness might prove to have broken Otto Radowitz’s life, as a passionate child breaks a toy, so she had it in her power to break Falloden. They had wandered down again, without knowing it, to the banks of the river, and were standing in the shelter of a group of young chestnuts, looking towards the hills, over which hung great thunder-clouds. At last Constance held out her hand. “Please go now,” she said pleadingly. “Send me word to-night. But don’t come. Let’s hope. I—I can’t say any more.” And indeed he saw that she could bear no more. He hesitated—yielded—took her unresisting hand, which he pressed violently to his lips—and was gone. Hour after hour passed. Falloden had employed Meyrick as an intermediary with a great friend of Sorell’s, one Benham, another fellow of St. Cyprian’s, who had—so Meyrick reported—helped Sorell to get Radowitz to the station in time for the two o’clock train to London. The plan, according to Benham, was to go straight to Sir Horley Wood, who had been telegraphed to in the morning, and had made an appointment for 4.30. Benham was to hear the result of the great surgeon’s examination as soon as possible, and hoped to let Meyrick have it somewhere between seven and eight. Four or five other men, who had been concerned in the row, including Desmond and Robertson, hung about college, miserably waiting. Falloden and Meyrick ordered horses and went off into the country, hardly speaking to each other during the whole of the ride. They returned to their Beaumont Street lodgings about seven, and after a sombre dinner Meyrick went out to go and enquire at St. Cyprian’s. He had scarcely gone when the last Oxford post arrived, and a letter was brought up for Falloden. It was addressed in his father’s hand-writing. He opened it mechanically; and in his preoccupation, he read it several times before he grasped his meaning.