The vague, golden hopes she had cherished through these past months of effort and scheming were gone forever. Warkworth would marry Aileen Moffatt, and use her money for an ambitious career. After these weeks now lying before them--weeks of dangerous intimacy, dangerous emotion--she and he would become as strangers to each other. He would be absorbed by his profession and his rich marriage. She would be left alone to live her life. A sudden terror of her own weakness overcame her. No, she could not be alone. She must place a barrier between herself and this--this strange threatening of illimitable ruin that sometimes rose upon her from the dark. "I have no prejudices," she had said to Sir Wilfrid. There were many moments when she felt a fierce pride in the element of lawlessness, of defiance, that seemed to be her inheritance from her parents. But to-night she was afraid of it. Again, if love was to go, _power_, the satisfaction of ambition, remained. She threw a quick glance into the future--the future beyond these three weeks. What could she make of it? She knew well that she was not the woman to resign herself to a mere pining obscurity. Jacob Delafield? Was it, after all, so impossible? For a few minutes she set herself deliberately to think out what it would mean to marry him; then suddenly broke down and wept, with inarticulate cries and sobs, with occasional reminiscences of her old convent's prayers, appeals half conscious, instinctive, to a God only half believed. XVI Delafield was walking through the Park towards Victoria Gate. A pair of beautiful roans pulled up suddenly beside him, and a little figure with a waving hand bent to him from a carriage. "Jacob, where are you off to? Let me give you a lift?" The gentleman addressed took off his hat. "Much obliged to you, but I want some exercise. I say, where did Freddie get that pair?" "I don't know, he doesn't tell me. Jacob, you must get in. I want to speak to you." Rather unwillingly, Delafield obeyed, and away they sped. "J'ai un tas de choses à vous dire," she said, speaking low, and in French, so as to protect herself from the servants in front. "Jacob, I'm _very_ unhappy about Julie." Delafield frowned uncomfortably. "Why? Hadn't you better leave her alone?" "Oh, of course, I know you think me a chatterbox. I don't care. You _must_ let me tell you some fresh news about her. It _isn't_ gossip, and you and I are her best friends. Oh, Freddie's so disagreeable about her. Jacob, you've got to help and advise a little. Now, do listen. It's your duty--your downright catechism duty." And she poured into his reluctant ear the tale which Miss Emily Lawrence nearly a fortnight before had confided to her.