"How do I know that I live and breathe, that this is I?" touching himself, with an impatient tap of those light restless fingers. "I know it. I have known it more or less from the time we played those duets--the dawn of knowledge and of love. To know each other was to love. We were born for each other. Allan, with his shadowy resemblance to me, was only my forerunner, like the man one sees in the street, the man who reminds one of a dear friend, half an hour or so before we meet that very friend. Allan taught her to like the type. She never loved him. In me she recognizes the individual, fated to love her and to be loved by her." "Dear Geoffrey, this is mere guess-work." "No! It is instinct, intuition, dead certainty. I tell you--once, twice, a thousand times, if you like--she loves me, and she doesn't love him. Tax her with it, pluck out the heart of her mystery. This hollow sham--this simulacrum of love must not go on to marriage. Talk to her, as woman to woman, as mother to daughter. I tell you it must not go on. It is driving me mad." "I will do what I can. Poor Allan! So good, so true-hearted!" "Am I false-hearted or vile, mother? Why should Allan be all in all to you?" "He is not all in all. You know you are the first, always the first in my heart; but I am deeply grieved for Allan. If what you tell me is true, he is doomed to be most unhappy. He is so fond of her. He has placed all his hopes of happiness upon his marriage--and they are to be married in little more than a month. It will be heartless to break it off." "If it isn't broken off, there will be a tragedy. I will thrust myself between them at the altar. The lying words shall not be spoken. I would rather shoot him--or her--than that she should perjure herself, swear to love another while she loves only me!" "Geoffrey, how do you know? How can you be sure----" "Our hands have touched; our eyes have met. That is enough." He walked out of the window to the garden, and from the garden to the stables, where he ordered his dog-cart. His servant kept a portmanteau always ready packed. He left Discombe within an hour of that conversation with his mother, and he was on his way to London before noon. The first intimation of his departure which Mrs. Wornock received was a note which she found on the luncheon-table. "I am off to the Hartz for a fortnight's tramp. Remember, something must be done to prevent this marriage. I shall return before the middle of August, and shall expect to find all settled. "Address Poste Restante, Hartzburg." CHAPTER XI. "WHO KNOWS WHY LOVE BEGINS?"