No, no, he would certainly not tell Kate anything about it. Why should he? He knew very well how his wife would regard the matter, and how her condemnation would fall, not on Louise--Kate had become exceedingly fond of Louise--no, indeed, but on Dering. Kate had never cordially "taken" (a favourite word of hers, that) to Wingfield's friend; she thought him affected and unpractical, and she laughed at his turned-down collars and Liberty ties. No, no, there was no reason why Kate should be told a word of this extraordinary, this amazing story. * * * * * On leaving Abingdon Street, Philip Dering swung across the broad roadway, and made his way, almost instinctively, to the garden which lay so nearly opposite his friend's office windows. He wanted to calm down, to think things over, and to recover full possession of himself before going home. It had cost him a considerable effort to tell Wingfield this thing. Not that he was in the least ashamed of what he and Louise had done--on the contrary, he was very proud of it--but he had often felt, during all those years, that he was being treacherous to the man who was, after all, his best friend; and there was in Dering enough of the feminine element--that element which Kate Wingfield so thoroughly despised in him--to make him feel sorry and ashamed. However, Wingfield had taken it very well, just as he would have wished him to take it, and no doubt the lawyer had given thoroughly sound advice. This unexpected, this huge legacy made all the difference. Besides, Dering knew well enough, when he examined his own heart and conscience, that he felt very differently about all manner of things from what he had been wont to feel say ten years ago. After all, he was following in the footsteps of men greater and wiser than he. It is impossible to be wholly consistent. If he had been consistent he would have refused to pay certain taxes--in fact, to have been wholly consistent during the last ten years would have probably landed him, England being what it is, in a lunatic asylum. He shuddered, suddenly remembering that for awhile his own mother had been insane. Still, as he strode along the primly kept paths of the Thames-side garden, he felt a great and, as he thought, a legitimate pride in the knowledge that in this one all-important matter, so deeply affecting his own and Louise's life, he and she had triumphantly defied convention, and had come out victorious.