It irked her to remember that she had told to the sleepy manservant who had admitted her at 3 A.M. an absolutely supererogatory falsehood to account for her return at that belated hour. For Lady Beau wouldn’t have bothered if you’d arrived with the milkman, so long as you turned up smiling at her bedside with your fountain-pen, and her coroneted paper-pad, when she’d had her early grape-fruit, and roll, and coffee, and was ready to tackle her morning mail. Patrine must be discreet. Cautious. Must tell no lies of the unnecessary kind. For even though von Herrnung had been removed, just when his attitude had become formidable and menacing—there might yet be pitfalls of her own digging to brave and shun. Pitfalls ... Perils ... As she lay wakeful, conscious through shut eyelids of the white mouldings of the ceiling her face was turned to, suddenly a keen sharp terror ran her through. She had heard her own voice say to von Herrnung: "My God! Can’t you understand that I ask nothing better than never to see nor hear of you again!" He had mocked her with his hateful smile, and she had not understood. "Under no—possible conditions? Just think a bit, my dear! Because—to burn one’s boats behind one—that is not prudent at all!" And later: "You give me to understand that whatever happens—_whatever happens_—you will have nothing more to do with me?" Idiot!—besotted idiot! She leaped up in the bed, visualising the peril, clearly as though a shutter had snapped back within her brain. Horror froze her, realising the shame she might live to bring upon those who loved Patrine. Uncle Owen ... Lynette ... Bawne.... Mildred and Irma were minor considerations, shadowy silhouettes, negative quantities. Neither Irma nor Mildred had ever loved Patrine. Dad had though. Poor, dear Dad! She was glad he wasn’t alive now. And Margot ... Would Kittums cut one if—that happened? And—Sherbrand! A blush burned over her, and she flung herself face downwards, burying her scorching face among the pillows, stifling the scream that the sheer torture wrung from her, by nipping a fold of the smooth linen in her teeth. So she lay and writhed on the red-hot griddle of her anguished recollection, until a neat housemaid knocked at the door and brought her morning tea. And as she set down the emptied cup, someone else knocked, and opened the door softly, and Patrine turned—to meet the look of Lynette. And then, though her struggling conscience warned her that she was unworthy to be held in arms so pure, she cried out wildly, and felt herself enfolded, and the fierce emotional tumult within her broke forth in wild sobs and drenching tears. She heard herself saying: "I would have given my life over and over to have saved you from grief like this!"