He looked down upon her wistfully. On the journey he had been conscious of great weariness of mind and body, a longing to escape from struggle, to give and receive the balm of kind looks and soft words. He had come back full of repentance towards her, if she had only known, full too of a natural young longing for peace and good times. She let him kiss her, but as he stooped to her it suddenly struck her that she had never seen him look so white and worn. Still; after all this holiday-making! Why? For love of a woman who never gave him a thought, except of pity. Bitterness possessed her. She turned away indifferently. "Well, you'll only just have time to dress. Is someone unpacking for you?" He looked at her. "Is that all you have to say?" She threw back her head and was silent. "I was very glad to come back to you," he said, with a sigh, "though I--I wish it were anywhere else than here. But, all things considered, I did not see how to refuse. And you have been here the whole fortnight?" "Yes." "Have you"--he hesitated--"have you seen a great deal of Lady Maxwell?" "Well, I suppose I have--in her own house." Then she broke out, her heart leaping visibly under her light dressing-gown. "I don't blame _her_ any more, if you want to know that; she doesn't think of anyone in the world but him." The gesture of her hand seemed to pursue the voice that had been just speaking in the corridor. He smiled. "Well, at least I'm glad you've come to see that!" he said quietly. "And is that all?" He had walked away from her, but at his renewed question he turned back quickly, his hands in his pockets. Something in the look of him gave her a moment of pleasure, a throb of possession. But she showed nothing of it. "No, it's not all"--her pale blue eyes pierced him. "Why did you go and see her that morning, and why have you never told me since?" He started, and shrugged his shoulders. "If you have been seeing much of her," he replied, after a pause, "you probably know as much as I could tell you." "No," she said steadily; "she has told me much about everything--but that." He walked restlessly about for a few seconds, then returned, holding out his hands. "Well, my dear, I said some mad and miserable things. They are as dead now as if they had never been spoken. And they were not love-making--they were crying for the moon. Take me, and forget them. I am an unsatisfactory sort of fellow, but I will do the best I can." "Wait a bit," she said, retreating, and speaking with a hard incisiveness. "There are plenty of things you don't know. Perhaps you don't know, for instance, that I wrote to Lord Maxwell? I sat up writing it that night--he got it the same morning you saw her." "You wrote to Maxwell!" he said in amazement--then, under his breath--"to complain of her. My God!" He walked away again, trying to control himself.