"Nonsense!" Rendel said decidedly. "You are not to go till you have had some breakfast." And he took her into the dining-room and made her eat. But this, as he felt, was not the moment for further discussion of his own plans. He saw how absolutely they had faded away from her view. "I shall follow you shortly," he said, "to know how Sir William is." "Oh, do," she said. "You can't come now, I suppose?" "I have a letter to write first. I must write to Lord Belmont." "Oh yes, of course," she said, with a sympathetic inflection in her voice. "Oh, Frank, how terrible it would have been if you had been going away now!" And she drew close to him as though seeking shelter against the anxieties and troubles of the world. "But I am not," said Rendel quietly. And she looked back at him as she drove off with a smile flickering over her troubled face. Rendel turned back into the house. There was nothing more to do, that was quite evident. He fastened up the letter to Belmont and sent it round to his house, also writing to Stamfordham a brief letter of thanks for his good offices and regrets at not being able to avail himself of them. Later he went to Prince's Gate. Sir William was a little better. It was a sharp, feverish attack brought on by a chill the night before. It lasted several days, during which time Rachel was constantly backwards and forwards at Prince's Gate, and at the end of which she proposed to Rendel that her father should, for the moment, as she put it, come to them to Cosmo Place. In the meantime Stamfordham, surprised at Rendel's refusal of the opportunity he had put in his way, had sent for him to urge him to re-consider his decision while there was yet time. Rendel found it very hard to explain his reasons in such a way that they should seem in the least valid to his interlocutor. Stamfordham, although he was well aware that Rendel had married during the spring, had but dimly realised the practical difference that this change of condition might bring into the young man's life and into the code by which his actions were governed. He himself had not married. He had had, report said, one passing fancy and then another, but they had never amounted to more than an impulse which had set him further on his way; there had never been an attraction strong enough to deflect him from his orbit. With such, he was quite clear, the statesman should have nothing to do. "Of course," he said, after listening to what Rendel had to say, "I should be the last person to wish to persuade you to take a course contrary to Mrs. Rendel's wishes, but still such an opportunity as this does not come to every man." "I know," said Rendel. "I never was married," Stamfordham went on, "but I have not understood that matrimony need necessarily be a bar to a successful career." "Nor have I," Rendel said, with a smile. "Let's see. How long have you been married?" "Four months," Rendel replied.