For a moment the wild thought came to him that he might try to explain, to justify himself, to prove to his father that in this matter he had but done as others do, and that the punishment was intolerably heavier than the crime; but then, looking up and meeting Thomas Carden's perplexed, questioning eyes, he felt a great rush of shame and horror, not only of himself, but of all those who look at life as he himself had always looked at it; for the first time, he understood the mysterious necessity, as well as the beauty, of abnegation, of renunciation. "Father," he said, "listen. I will not go away alone; I was mad to think of such a thing. We will go together, you and I,--Lane has told me that such has been your wish,--and then perhaps some day we will come back together." After this, for the first time for many nights, Theodore Carden fell into a dreamless sleep. III A VERY MODERN INSTANCE Oliver Germaine walked with long, even strides from the Marble Arch to Grosvenor Gate. It was Sunday morning, early in July, and the comparatively deserted portion of the Park which he had chosen was, even so, full of walkers. A good many people, men as well as women, looked at him pleasantly as he went by, for the young man was an attractive, even an arresting personality to the type of person who takes part in Church Parade. Germaine was tall, slim, dark, so blessed by fate in the mere matter of eyes, nose and mouth, that his looks were often commented on when his wife's beauty was mentioned. So it was that, as he walked quickly by, a rather vexed expression on his handsome face, almost every man who saw him envied him--if not his looks then his clothes, if not his clothes then his air of being young, healthy, and, to use an ugly modern phrase, in perfect condition. A nursemaid who watched him pass to and fro several times told herself, rather wistfully, that he was waiting for a loved one, and that the lady, as is the way with loved ones, was late. The nursemaid was right in one sense, wrong in another. Oliver Germaine was waiting for a lady, but the lady was his married sister. Her name was Fanny Burdon, and her home was in Shropshire. Germaine had a loved one, but she was already his wife, his beautiful, clever Bella, with whom he would so much rather have been now, sitting in their pretty house in West Chapel Street than waiting in the Park for his sister Fanny. It was really too bad of Fanny to be late! The more so that she would certainly feel aggrieved if, when she did come, her brother made her go straight home with him, instead of taking her down into the crowd of people who were now seething round the Achilles statue. But if Fanny didn't come at once, go home they must, for Bella wouldn't like them to be late--quite a number of people were coming to lunch.