Floating to and fro on the waves of sound like an autumn leaf blown by the wind. Suddenly, by one of those flashes of telepathy that on occasion lighten across the path of all of us, Mr. Wycherly became acutely conscious that his was not the only soul stirred by this perfect dancing. And the knowledge that his enthusiastic appreciation was shared stirred in him no feeling save that of uncomfortable foreboding. He put on his eye-glasses and looked across the room. There, near the door, he saw Curly accompanied by a small, fair man in a fur coat, a clean-shaven man whose full blue eyes expressed both interest and pleasure, pleasure keen as his own had been. And there was subtly communicated to Mr. Wycherly a sense of impending change, and a sensation of excited interrogation, so strong that he found himself mentally demanding: "What will he do?" And the ecstasy with which he had at first watched Jane-Anne was interrupted and invaded by a host of alien doubts and speculations. For he knew that the fates were busy weaving, and that the central figure in their fabric was that of the slender girl in black who danced. And nothing happened. Curly and the man in the fur coat went away in a few minutes, and neither of them had attempted to speak to Jane-Anne when her dance ended. But, all the same, the end was the end Mr. Wycherly had refused to face. When it actually came to the point of granting or withholding his permission, he bade her God speed and sent her forth. The flame in her shone luminous and clear; there was no questioning it; and it seemed to him the better part to feed the fire that burned so steadily on the altar of her high endeavour. Mrs. Dew neither approved nor opposed. For some years now she had felt Jane-Anne was growing beyond her; always incomprehensible, she was now on a plane that her good aunt could only touch by means of the steady affection she had always felt. That way she could always reach Jane-Anne. Since her niece was not to be a respectable servant in a good family, it seemed to Mrs. Dew that all other careers were equally chimerical and dangerous. The girl might try this play-acting. If it failed—why, the master would have her back. Mrs. Dew was sure of that, and was therefore less anxious than might have been expected. With a diffidence she had never shown before, she followed Jane-Anne into her bedroom the afternoon before she left Holywell, and stood at the end of the bed watching the tall girl on her knees beside the new trunk she herself had given her. "Look here, Jane-Anne," she said suddenly, and because she was very much in earnest she lapsed into the broad Gloucestershire of her youth. "I’m not one as can talk religious—a good sharp scoldin’s more in my line—but I’d be glad that you should remember as you come of a most respectable family. There’s bin Burfords in Great Stanley for two ’undred year, and so far as we do know, never a light woman amongst ’em."