Happy for her, happy for him, for all that have a smile and tear for true love, to remember that from that moment never a hasty word or thought passed between them. In that lovers' litany all such were purged, the past wiped out as if it had never been. And, as if in reward, into the night that surrounded Roly came a ray like a miraculous rope thrown to one in a pit. The way must somehow be prepared for Audrey, he had said; the gossip somehow be made to die before he could declare her. Sir Wryford Sheringham supplied the way. General Sir Wryford Sheringham had been his father's close friend, was Gran's much-trusted nephew and her adviser in Roly's training. Gran was sending him appealing letters in these days, imploring him to find out what it was that was wrong with her dear Roly. Chance enabled him suddenly to reply that, on the eve of his return to India, he was now returning to take command of the Frontier Expedition that the government of India had been saving up for a long time against three Border tribes, and that he purposed taking Roly with him. He could invent a corner to shove the boy into, he wrote; and she must not break her heart nor shed a single tear except for joy that the chance had come to get the boy away and to work. "Whatever it is he's been up to," Sir Wryford wrote, "this'll pull him out of it and send him back to you his father's son again." They walked into this last and supreme blunder as blindly as they had gone into the first. Roly presented it as the opportunity more wonderful than any that he could have invented to give this gossiping the slip. When he returned ("loaded with medals, old girl," as, aflame with excitement, he told her) it would all be forgotten; open arms for him and open arms for her. Audrey's contribution to the folly was as characteristic. The news struck her like a blow; but instantly with the shock came its anodyne. He planned for her; every word of his rushing, thoughtless words was drafted to scale of "Because I love you so;" though they had been actual knives she would gladly have clasped such to her heart. Credit him that the night before the day on which he sailed he had a sudden realisation of his madness. Credit him, at least, that now for the first time in their misguided chapter, he saw a blunder before he was irrevocably in it, and seeing it, tried to halt. He realised. He told her it was impossible that he should leave her thus. He must leave her in her right place. He must leave her with Gran. Gran was in town to bid him good-by. He must--he would tell her that very night of their marriage: in the morning take Audrey to her.