He could not eat, though he was hungry; nor rest, though tired to the bone. He would go out again. It was good to be out, even in a London fog, which was nothing to the fogs he remembered, for there was no question of groping one's way; one could see it for fifty yards, often for more. But now there was not even a small magenta sun; it was the middle of the brief December afternoon when Robert Carlton left his hotel; and near its close before he found himself in Kensington Gardens once more. He hardly knew what brought him there. It was partly, but not altogether, a sentimental impulse. Carlton had also some idea of finding the hospital if he could, some hope of seeing Gwynneth again, if only to assure himself that his imaginings of the last few hours had made her other than what she was. And then he could rectify those omissions of the morning; but neither was this all; a strong inexplicable attraction drew him straight to the spot where he had stood so long after Gwynneth was gone. And Gwynneth herself was standing there again! He was almost upon her before he saw her in the dusk, then those long lawn streamers leapt like lightning to his eyes; and now he was creeping backwards across the path. But she had not heard him, or she did not heed: her back was turned, and bent, for she was leaning over the iron paling which he had grasped before. And she shook with tears. Carlton was shaking, too; passion had taken him by the shoulders, and was shaking the strength out of his heart. Horror had driven him back, passion was spurring him on again. If she loved him--if she loved him--then the hand of God was in all this. He was back upon the spot where recognition had come. Oh, yes, it was she! She had given a little cry; she was stooping lower over the paling; her voice was unmistakable. Then she rose, half turning, and he saw her profile plain. She was raising something to her eyes; in another moment it was at her lips, and she was kissing it, and sobbing over it, whatever it might be. Carlton thought he knew what it was, and conceived a new horror of himself in his involuntary capacity of spy. Yet instinctively he was feeling in both overcoat pockets at once; in one there was a single glove; in the other nothing at all. Cold with shame, but shivering with excitement, the man stood torn between the newborn desire of his eyes, and the fixed resolve of his soul. But he could not tear himself from the spot--nor was it any longer necessary. Gwynneth was gone herself; gone without seeing him; out of sight this time in an instant. And Robert Carlton, white, trembling, but himself--the man with a will at least--was listening a second time to the failing music of her feet, his own planted firmly on the walk. XXXI ADVENT EVE