And so it fell out that in an hour of unusual depression, and of natural hesitation which was yet not natural in Robert Carlton, he looked up suddenly and once more saw his enemy in the sanctuary which would soon be his very own leafy sanctuary no longer. Carlton had come there to meditate and to pray, but not to work. That sort of work was not for him any more. Others must take it up; the time was ripe; only the beginning was hard. And here was Sir Wilton Gleed advancing towards him. And Sir Wilton was holding out his hand. XXIX A HAVEN OF HEARTS Slower to decide than most young persons of her independent character, Gwynneth was one of those who are none the less capable of decisive conduct in a definite emergency. She behaved with spirit in the predicament in which her weakness and her strength had combined to place her. She had jilted Sidney; outsiders might not know it; but she had treated him in a way which he and his were never likely to forgive. After that, and that alone, his home could not have been her home any more; but Gwynneth had other and even stronger reasons for determining to leave Long Stow; and there were none why she should not. She had her money. She was of age. She would be a good riddance now. It was her first thought in the garden. The thought hardened to resolve while Sidney, full of bitterness and champagne, was still galling his hired horse back to Cambridge. Gwynneth also was gone within the week. It was a chance acquaintance to whom the girl had written in her need. She had met in Leipzig a strangely interesting woman: commanding, mysterious, self-contained. This lady, a Mrs. Molyneux by name, had taken notice of Gwynneth, and, at the close of their short acquaintance, had given her a card inscribed in pencil with the name of St. Hilda's Hospital, Campden Hill. "You have never heard of it," Mrs. Molyneux had said with a smile; "but I shall be very glad if you will come and see me and my hospital some day when you are in town." Gwynneth had felt honoured, she could scarcely have said why, for she knew no more of this lady than she had seen for herself, which was really very little. But there is a kind of distinction which appeals to the instinct rather than to the conscious perceptions, and Gwynneth had felt both awed and flattered by an invitation which was obviously sincere. She had said that she should love to see the hospital--and had never been near it yet. "I don't know whether you have ever thought of being a nurse," Mrs. Molyneux had added with Gwynneth's hand in hers; "but if you ever should--or if ever you want to do something, and don't know what else to do--I wish you would write to me, and let me be your friend."