To the outside observer it would seem that Kean had at last achieved the two great ambitions of his life. He had married the woman of his choice and a knighthood had already set the seal on his fame as the most brilliant counsel of his day. But to Fayre, who had known Sybil Kean too well in the past to be deceived by appearances, his absolute devotion to his invalid wife seemed little short of tragic in its intensity. For Sybil Kean was of the kind that does not forget. Her husband’s death had come near to killing her; for weeks she lay hovering between life and death, only to emerge with her health shattered and an empty life before her. When, at last, Kean’s insistence was rewarded and he persuaded her to marry him, she gave him all she had to give, a sympathy and understanding such as has fallen to the lot of few men and a rare loyalty. But her health had grown steadily worse and Fayre, on first seeing her after the lapse of years, had been appalled at the change in her. He had often wondered, during the long hours on shipboard, how these two would run in double harness and, curiously enough, his fears had been all for Sybil. For even in his youth Kean had been hard, as hard perhaps on himself as on others, in the pursuit of his aims, a man who did not make allowances and expected none. His judgments were ruthless and pitilessly exact and he had carved his way, with neither influence nor money to help him, by sheer strength of personality and an amazing brilliance both of mind and speech. When addressing a jury he used sentiment with a skill that is only shown by those whose perceptions are never blurred by emotion and he was a cruel cross-examiner. Kean, the lawyer, had been no surprise to Fayre, who had watched him in the first stages of his career, but Kean, the husband, had come as a revelation. To Fayre, the tenderness and consideration he showed towards his wife was almost incredible, until he remembered that, even in his youth, Kean had always been a man of one idea. Then he had sacrificed everything, sleep, diversion, even food, to his work, his whole being concentrated on achieving success in the career he had chosen, and now an influence even stronger than ambition had come into his life and he had given himself up to it with that complete absorption that was so characteristic of him. And the pity of it was that all his devoted care, backed by the luxury with which he was now able to surround her, did not serve to strengthen Sybil Kean’s frail hold on life. Fayre’s kindly heart was troubled as he watched these two: Sybil Kean, incredibly slender and still beautiful, in spite of her forty years, lying half buried in the cushions of a huge armchair, and Kean standing over her, his height accentuated by his habit of standing with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched, dark and saturnine, his face alight with amusement at something his wife had just said. “When do you get back, Edward?” asked Lady Staveley.