I am glad that he is coming. It’s far better to get it over at Sainte Véronique than to have to go through it all at Traxelby. Besides, it’s better that I should meet him without any more delay. Distance and mystery have lent enchantment to my view of him, and they are to blame for my three silly nights and days. If there are any germs of love-sickness still lurking in my veins, I expect a talk with him will kill them. He will be unlike his portrait and far more unlike his letters, he is just an ordinary male person, gone mad over a pretty face. The only uncommon thing about him, is that his letters strive, by an ecstatic _tour de force_, to lift an everyday masculine passion up to supra-mundane regions. Through a sequence of galling accidents, I have bolstered up his illusion. That is why, for a few days, there really was a spiritual bond between us. But to-morrow will snap it. There is sure to be a something. Perhaps he will have a weak voice. I could no more endure him with a weak voice than I could endure Susan with a gruff one. This is the note he will find awaiting him:-- You ought not to come here. But I received your telegram too late to stop you. I showed the telegram to Miss Langley and she was angry. Not angry because you want me. Indeed, so soon as she is satisfied that all is as it should be, she will help me as much as lies in her power. But she was angry that you should come here. I have promised to ask you, imperatively, not to remain after Sunday. Until that day we shall be at the Villa de la Mer, a chalet about a mile from here. Do not try to see me to-night. I agree with Miss Langley that it will be best if we meet to-morrow morning on the beach at eleven o’clock. I shall expect you at the end of the path down from the hotel, where the beck is lost in the shingle. I can be with you for an hour. If we do not find that we are making a mistake, Miss Langley will be glad to see you at the Villa at half-past two. S.B. That is as far ahead as I mean to look. If Susan and he strike a bargain at once, I may have to consider what unbendings I must make, and what little honours I must render to-morrow night, and Sunday, to my noble neighbour, and to my Lady Ruddington of the very near future. I have kept faith with Gibson. To-morrow morning he will have a discreet letter, telling him that the unknown is coming for a few hours: that he is an honourable man; and that Gibson will best serve himself and everybody else by keeping out of the way. _Noon_. Susan is alternately beaming and weeping like an April day.