He was but twenty doors from the studio in King's Road when the finer way became definite in his mind, and he called to the chauffeur to stop, for he literally did not know if he could do this. But he realised that otherwise his visit would be better left unpaid; there was no good in his going there, if he was to do anything else than this. Then he got out of the car. "You can go home," he said to the chauffeur. The man touched his cap in acknowledgment of the tip that Philip gave him, waited for a lull in the traffic, and turned. Philip was left alone on the pavement, looking after the yellow-panelled carriage. Then he turned round quickly; his mind was already made up; he would go there, he would act as all that was truly best in him dictated. But as he hesitated, looking back, two figures had come close to him from a door near, hailing a hansom. When he turned they were close to him. His eyes blazed suddenly with a hard, angry light; his mouth trembled, the sight of them together roused in him the full sense of the injury he had suffered. "Ah, there you are!" he cried. "I curse you both; I pray that the misery you have brought on me may return double-fold to you!" Evelyn had drawn back a step, putting his arm out to shelter Madge, for it seemed as if Philip would strike her. But the next moment he turned on his heel again, and walked away from them. [Illustration: text decoration] [Illustration: text decoration] TWELFTH MRS. Home was walking gently up and down the terrace in front of the drawing-room windows at her son's house above Pangbourne. The deep heat of the July afternoon lay heavily on river and land and sky, for the last fortnight, even in the country, had been of scorching sort, and the great thunderstorm which, ten days ago, had been as violent here as in the New Forest, had not sensibly relieved the air. Philip had not been down for nearly a month, and his mother, though she knew nothing about gardening (her ideal of a garden-bed was a row of lobelias, backed by a row of calceolarias, backed by a row of scarlet geraniums), felt vaguely that though she did not at all understand the sort of thing Philip wanted, he would be disappointed about the present result. For to-day she had received a telegram from him--he telegraphed the most iniquitously lengthy and unnecessary communication--saying that he would arrive that evening. Surely a postcard even the day before would have conveyed as much as this telegram, which told her that he was coming down alone, that he wished a reply if anyone was staying with her, and, if so, who, that he was leaving Madge in London, and that Evelyn, who had proposed himself for this last Saturday till Monday in July, was not coming. Also--this was all in the telegram for which a postcard the day before could have done duty--Gladys Ellington and her husband, who were to have spent the three days with them, were unable to come, and he