Since she had seen him again she scarcely knew how she felt about it. This day she was to see him again alone, because he wished it, and because Dulcie Clay had begged her to gratify the wish. Why was it, she asked herself, that the little nurse desired they should be alone together? It was perfectly clear, to a woman with Edith's penetration, that Dulcie was in love with Aylmer. Also, she was equally sure that the girl believed Aylmer to be devoted to her, Edith. Then it must be the purest unselfishness. Dulcie probably, she thought, loved him with a kind of hopeless worship. She had seen him ill and weak, she pitied him, she wanted him to be happy. In return for this generosity Edith felt a generous kindness for her, a sympathy that she would never have believed she could feel at seeing such a beautiful girl on those rather intimate terms with Aylmer. It must mean, simply, that Edith knew Aylmer cared for her still. A look was enough to convince her that at least he still took a great and deep interest in her. And she wanted to come to an understanding with him, or she could have avoided a _tete-a-tete_. During the three years he had been away the feeling had calmed down, but the ideal was still there, and the memory. Whenever Bruce was maddening--which was fairly often--when she heard music, when she saw beautiful scenery, when she was reading a romantic book, when any other man admired her, Aylmer was always in her thoughts. When Edith saw him again she was not sure that she had not worn out her passion by dwelling on it. But that might easily be caused by the mere _gene_ of the first two or three meetings. There is a shyness, a sort of coldness, in meeting again a person one has passionately loved. To see the dream in flesh and blood, the thought made concrete, once more brings poetry down to prose. Then the terms they met on now were changed. He was playing such a different part. Instead of the strong, determined man who had voluntarily left her, refusing to know her as a friend, and reproaching her bitterly for playing with him, as he called it, here was a broken invalid, a pathetic figure who appealed to entirely different sentiments. There is naturally something maternal in a woman's feeling to a sick man. There was also the halo that surrounds the wounded hero. He was not ill through weakness, but through strength and courage. She found herself thinking of him day and night, but it was in a different way. It might be because he had not yet referred to their past love affair. Edith dressed with unusual care to go and see him today. Even if a woman wishes to discourage or to break off all relations with a man, she doesn't, after all, wish to leave a disagreeable impression.