When John said good-bye to Jill on the steps of the _fondamenta_, when the last wave of her little white handkerchief had fluttered into a curling light upon the water, he had turned back into the house, believing that the story was irretrievably ended. The last word had been written. So far as Jill was concerned, he might well close the book and thank the pen of Chance that it had shown him an ideal as high above the common conception of life as it is good for the eyes of a man to lift. But he had not, in this calculation, counted the presence of those two white heads in the window up above. For him, so far as his eye could see, Destiny had had its fill, had drained the cup of possibility to its utmost dregs. But this was not so for them. They had yet to be appeased. For them, the matter had only just begun. To them, it was the last shuttle, whose speeding to and fro, would weave in the past with the present and so fulfil their final justification. From that day, the little old white-haired lady looked forward to John’s marriage with Jill as to the consummation of her whole life’s desire. She lived--she thought--she ordered her existence for nothing else. Her disappointment was pathetic to witness when she received Jill’s little note telling her departure the next day. But her beliefs were not shaken; her hopes were not thwarted. She still saw the last burning of her romance before the flame should flicker and become a light no more. She spoke to John about it of course. Sitting in the window one day, the window that looked down on to the old gentleman’s garden, she told him what she knew; what was not the slightest use his contradicting. They loved each other. Oh, not a doubt of it! She spoke authoritatively, as women will on these subjects. Who better able to than they? "You really think she loves me, mother?" he asked in a quick moment of hopefulness. She took his hand. She lifted one tired arm about his neck. "Why do you think she came like that to Venice?" she asked. "There’s not a thing she wouldn’t do for you--not a place she wouldn’t go to in order to see you. Don’t you realise that?" It was unfortunate she should have chosen that phrase. There were things, Jill would not do for him. It had needed every effort from him to find the full value of unselfishness in what she was about to do; but he could not think that she loved him as his mother would have him believe. It was unfortunate, her choosing of that phrase. From that moment, John shrank into himself. He could not bring himself to tell her the whole truth of it; therefore, it was no good talking any more. "Her people are too well off," he said, rising with a gesture of despair from the seat in the window. "They’re in a different position altogether. I’ve no right to tell her. I’ve no right to try and win her affection. It would only be a hopeless business all through."