"It's no use," she declared. "Whatever may be right, whatever may be wrong, I'm not going back. The law ought to set me free (this was an outcome of Shaylor's Patch!). Since it doesn't, I set myself free, that's all." "But what are you going to do?" "Either take a cottage down here or a tiny flat in London." "I didn't ask where you were going to live, but what you were going to do." Hobart was a patient man, but few people's tempers are quite unaffected by blank failure, by a serene disregard of their arguments. "Do? Oh, I dare say I shall take up some movement. I hear a lot about that sort of thing down here, and I'm rather interested." "Oh, you're not the sort of woman who buries herself in a movement, as you call it." "I can make friends, like other people, I suppose. I needn't bury myself." "Yes, you can make friends fast enough! Winnie, you're avoiding the crux of the matter." "Oh, you're back to your dangers! Well, I think I can trust myself to behave properly." "You ought to be sure of it." "Are you being polite?" "Oh, hang politeness! This is a vital question for you." The colour mounted in her cheeks; for the first time she showed some sign of embarrassment. But the embarrassment and the feelings from which it sprang--those new feelings of the last fortnight--could not make her waver. They reinforced her resolution with all the power of emotion. They made "going back" still more terrible, a renunciation now as well as a slavery. Her eyes, though not her words, had promised Godfrey Ledstone that she would not go back. What then, as Hobart Gaynor asked, was she going to do? The time for putting that question had not come. There was the pleasure now--not yet the perplexity. She gave a vexed laugh. "Whether it's vital or not, at any rate it's a question for me, as you say yourself, and for me only. And I must risk it, Hobart. After all, there are different--well, ideas--on that sort of subject, aren't there?" Here Shaylor's Patch showed its influence again. "I rather wish you hadn't come to this house," he said slowly. "I've been happier here than anywhere in the world. What have you against it?" "Well, I can't claim to know much about it, but don't some queer people come?" "Plenty!" she laughed. "It's very amusing." He smiled, frowned, looked, and indeed felt, a little foolish--as the average man does when he finds himself called upon to take the moral line. "Rather--er--unsettling?" he hazarded lamely. "Very stimulating." "Well, I can say no more. I've done my job. Take care of yourself, Winnie." "Oh yes, I will; you may be sure of that. Hobart, will you tell Cyril that I'm very, very sorry, and that I hope he'll be happy, and wish him splendid success and prosperity?" "I'll tell him--if you won't write yourself." "I couldn't. That would open it all again. I'll write to you, if there's any business to be settled."