The gathering storm had opened and was driving along the Ridge in its first onset of rain when at last Percival turned where Dora had left him, wrenched himself about as though his feet were rooted, and brought to Aunt Maggie the dark and working face that had stared down upon the Old Manor. Ima had told Aunt Maggie of his strange behaviour when he had stopped the cart. When he arrived she was up-stairs in her room, crying a little, wanting to be alone. Aunt Maggie, Ima's fears communicated to her, awaited him alone in the parlour. He opened the door fiercely and came in dripping from the streaming night. She gave a little cry at sight of his face and rose and stretched her hands towards him. The sudden peace in here, exchanged for the buffeting of the night, reacted on the tumult of his mind and forced him to discharge it. "O Aunt Maggie! Aunt Maggie!" he said. "My Percival! What is it?" He took both her hands that were extended to him; then was acted upon anew by her loving eyes, and clasped her to him and she felt sobs shaking his strong frame. "Percival! Percival! What has happened to you?" He let her go and dropped into a chair against the table, put his hands to his head and while she saw his shoulders heaving she saw the raindrops running through his fingers from his hair. She went before him, and stretching her arms across the table encircled his wrists with her hands. They were burning to her touch. "Percival, it is torturing to me to see you like this. Tell me, tell me!" He took her hands. "Oh, I am in torture," he said, and she saw the torture burning in his eyes. "Aunt Maggie, Aunt Maggie, I loved Dora. I never told you. I was to tell you to-night. I had come back for her." She felt a sense go through her as of a sword turned within her. "But Rollo!" she said. His hands crushed hers so that she had pain. "Yes, Rollo!" he said. "I nearly went to him to-night. I shall go yet. Rollo! Rollo! Rollo!" He ground the name between his teeth. The pressure of his hands on hers became almost insufferable. She felt it as nothing to what shook her brain. She was back at the bedside in the Holloway Road. She was spun through the years of her waiting, waiting. She was fronted with the torments when that for which she waited had seemed to be snatched from her. There filled the room and stooped towards her the figure that she envisaged as fate, that had stayed her hand, that she obeyed, that had tried her, that had fought for her, that now was come to prove itself fate indeed.