There is a regulation forbidding prisoners to converse upon the subject of their misdemeanours, but neither he nor she seemed to be aware of it. Moreover, she was truly convinced that no nun in cloister was as hopelessly certain of safety from world and flesh and devil as was her heart and its meditations, under the aegis of admitted wedlock. She looked down at the ring she wore, and a faint shiver passed over her. "You are going to Mrs. Ascott?" "Yes, to make her a Trianon and a smirking little park. I can't quarrel with my bread and butter, but I wish people would let these woods alone." She sat very still and thoughtful, hands clasped on her knee. "So you are going to Mrs. Ascott," she repeated. And, still thoughtful: "I am so fond of Alida Ascott.... She is very pretty, isn't she?" "Very," he said absently. "Don't you think so?"--warmly. "I never met her but once." She was considering him, the knuckle of one forefinger resting against her chin in an almost childish attitude of thoughtful perplexity. "How long are you to remain there, Garry?" "Where?"--coming out of abstraction. "There--at Mrs. Ascott's?" "Oh, I don't know--a month, I suppose." "Not longer?" "I can't tell, Shiela." Young Mrs. Malcourt fell silent, eyes on the ground, one knee loosely crossed over the other, and her small foot swinging gently above its blue shadow on the gravel. Some details in the eternal scheme of things were troubling her already; for one, the liberty of this man to come and go at will; and the dawning perception of her own chaining. It was curious, too, to be sitting here so idly beside him, and realise that she had belonged to him so absolutely--remembering the thousand thrilling intimacies that bound them immortally together--and now to be actually so isolated, so beyond his reach, so alone, so miserably certain of her soul's safety!... And now, for the first time, she missed the pleasures of fear--the exquisite trepidation that lay in unsafety--the blessed thrill of peril warning her to avoid his eyes, his touch, his--lips. She glanced uneasily at him, a slow side gaze; and met his eyes. Her heart had begun beating faster; a glow grew in her veins; she closed her eyes, sitting there surprised--not yet frightened. Time throbbed on; rigid, motionless, she endured the pulsing silence while the blood quickened till body and limbs seemed burning; and suddenly, from heart to throat the tension tightened as though a cry, echoing within her, was being strangled. "Perhaps you had better--go--" she managed to say. "Why?" She looked down at her restless fingers interlacing, too confused to be actually afraid of herself or him.