He looked once and painted; he looked and painted again. Then for the third time he looked, and looked long, but he painted no more. "I have done it," he said. There was a long pause; he put his palette down again, and looked at Madge, as she stood there. "Thank you," he said. "That will do." Then Lady Ellington spoke. "It was hardly worth my daughter's while to come here for half a minute," she remarked, "or mine either." Evelyn turned to her; he was conscious of even a sort of pity for her. "It was not worth your while," he said, "because your presence here makes no difference. When I said your daughter might have trusted me and come here alone, I did not know what I know now. I love her. Madge, do you hear?" She gave one long sigh, and the scarlet cloak fell to the ground. But she did not move. "Oh! Evelyn," she said. Lady Ellington rustled in her chair, as she might have rustled at a situation in a play that interested her. She knew what had happened, but she had not yet fully realised it. But her cool, quick brain very soon grasped it all, and began forging ahead again. There were a hundred obstacles she could yet throw in the way of this calm, advancing force. "And which of you proposes to tell Philip?" she said. The effect of this was admirable from her point of view. It brought both of the others back to earth again. Evelyn winced as if he had been struck, and Madge came quickly off the platform. "Philip?" she cried. "Ah, what have we done? What have we said? Philip must never know. We must never tell him. Ah, but next week!" The one thought that for this last ten minutes had possessed her, had possessed her to the exclusion of everything else. There had been no Philip, no world, no anything except the one inevitable fact. But Lady Ellington's well-timed and perfectly justifiable observation made everything else, all the sorrows and the bitternesses that must come, reel into sight again. But she turned not to her mother, but to Evelyn. "Oh, poor Philip!" she cried. "He has always been so good, so content. And Mrs. Home---- Evelyn, what is to be done?" She laid her hand in appeal on his shoulder; he took it and kissed it. "Leave it all to me," he said. "I will see that he knows." "And you will tell him I am sorry?" she said. "You will make him understand how sorry I am, but that I could not help it?" "Ah, my darling!" he cried, and kissed her. * * * * * Now, Lady Ellington had seldom in all her busy and fully-occupied life felt helpless, but she felt helpless now, and two young folk, without a plan in their heads while she was bursting with excellent plans, had brought this paralysis on her. She also had very seldom felt angry, but now it would not be too much to say that she felt furious, and her sense of impotence added to her fury. She got out of her chair and took Madge by the shoulder. "You ought to be whipped, Madge!" she cried. The girl held out her hand to her.