Alix did not destroy this letter. She locked it away in a drawer of her desk. She had made up her mind to confront Thane with this official communication. It was an ordeal she dreaded. Her true reason for refusing to see him was clear to her if to no one else: she hated the thought of hurting him! Moreover, she was strangely oppressed by the fear that she would falter at the crucial moment and that her half-guarded defences would go down before the assault. She knew his strength far better than she knew his weakness. She had had an illuminating example of his power. Was she any stronger now than on that never-to-be-forgotten night?...She put off the evil hour. And on the same third day of renunciation, she had a letter from David Strong. She wept a little over it, and driven finally by a restlessness such as she had never known before, feverishly dressed herself, and set forth late in the afternoon for a long walk in the open air. She took to the leaf-strewn woodland roads, and there was a definite goal in mind. II Courtney remembered Rosabel Vick. "I guess I'd better call her up," he said to himself. "I ought to have done it several days ago. Beastly rotten of me to have neglected it. She's probably been sitting over there waiting ever since--Gad, she may; have some good news. Maybe she is mistaken." He went over to the telephone exchange and called up the Vick house. Rosabel answered. "That you, Rosie?...Well, I couldn't. I've been laid up, completely out of commission ever since I saw you....What?...I--I didn't get that, Rosie. Speak louder,--closer to the telephone." Very distinctly now came the words, almost in a wail: "Oh, Courtney, why--why do you lie to me?" "Lie to you? My dear girl, do you know what you are--" A low moan, and a harsh, choking sob smote his ear, and then the click of the receiver on the hook. "Well, I'll be hanged!" he muttered angrily. "That's the last time I'll call you up, take it from me." And it was the last time he ever called her up. Then he, too, ravaged by uneasy thoughts, struck off into the country lanes, the better to commune with himself. In due course, he came to the gate leading up to the top of Quill's Window. Here he lagged. His gaze went across the strip of pasture-land to the deserted house above the main-travelled road. He started. His gaze grew more intense. A lone figure traversed the highway. It turned in at the gate, and, as he watched, strode swiftly up the path to the front door....He saw her bend over, evidently to insert a key in the lock. Then the door opened and closed behind her. III Every word of David's letter was impressed on Alix's brain. Over and over again she repeated to herself certain passages as she strode rapidly through the winding lanes. She spoke them tenderly, wonderingly, and her eyes were shining. DEAREST ALIX: