"Oh, my God!" she said, wheeling about and facing him so suddenly that he sat bolt upright. "Don't you see what it means? Has it not been going on under our very eyes? And you talk of a 'boy and girl' escapade! I tell you they are madly in love. She sees no one else when he is there--he cannot take his eyes off her. Why, they are married already for all I know--or you care," she added with almost savage emphasis. The outburst frightened a man by no means blessed with much pluck where women were concerned. Silvester turned as white as a sheet. It was as though a pit had been opened at his feet, and he had looked in to see enormities. "You don't mean to tell me--God forbid!" he gasped. "You don't mean to tell me that this is sin, Gabrielle? You don't think that, surely?" "I don't know what to think," she said in despair. "It is our business to act at once. You must go to Brighton. What will Mr. Faber say if you don't? Telegraph to Southampton in case the yacht has not sailed. Have we no responsibilities? Oh! don't you see? It's madness, madness! And it's our fault. Both of us are to blame. We have just gone our own ways and left them to themselves. What else could have come of it when they were lovers?" He stood before her utterly abashed. "My dearest girl," he said, "I will go to Brighton at once." And then he said: "But it's of you I should be thinking. God bless you, Gabrielle!" IV He left by the half-past four o'clock train from Victoria, and did not return that night. When he was gone, Gabrielle shut herself up in her own room, and asked herself what new thing had come into her life. A turn of fortune had cast her down from the heights to the old abyss of the suburban monotonies; and now it had put this affront upon her. She perceived already what sport the teacup brigade would make of it, and how her pride must suffer just because of the very littleness of her surroundings. All Hampstead would point the finger at her, and there would be kind friends in abundance to offer their sympathies. Thus had her destiny punished the brief hours of an infatuation for which her youth had been responsible. As others, she had known a day when she had desired the love of man and had desired it passionately. Thus had she come to be the betrothed of one who had never loved her, and for this she must repay.