For one moment Maud felt that he spoke the truth, that he was beyond power of recall. But the next her whole soul and strength was up in arms, fighting, denying that thought, passionately reversing it. There was nothing in the world that could be compared with the reality of Infinite Love; she had known that so well to-day, and already she was letting error obscure it. Vehemently, vigorously, she fought that error, and then suddenly she wondered what she had been fighting. For there was nothing there; her blows were rained upon emptiness. It was as if she had dreamed she was fighting. And she spoke to Thurso as she might have spoken to a child who was afraid of the dark, while in her hands she carried the Great Light. "You silly boy!" she said. "What can you mean by such nonsense? How can I give you up? How is it possible for me to give up one whom I love? You can't give up love. You are frightened, you know, and there's nothing in the world to frighten you. You said this afternoon things that made me unutterably happy, and now you come and tell me they were lies, that you didn't mean them. I'm sorry you didn't mean them, but they weren't lies. They were all perfectly true." That sombre smouldering of despair in his eyes faded. "Do you mean you can possibly ever trust me again?" he asked. Then he added quickly: "But I can't give you the bottle--I can't." Maud almost laughed. "Well, if you can't, you can't," she said. "And now I'm going to see you back to your cabin, and you are going to bed. You've had a dreadful evening, dear, over these nightmare errors. I am so sorry. And if you feel I am in the room with you again, you mustn't be frightened or think there is anything wrong. I can't help being with you." He said nothing to this, and they went down the creaking white passage to his cabin in silence. "And you've had dinner?" she asked. "You won't be hungry before morning? It's only a little after one, you know. I could get you something." "No; nothing, thanks," he said. He stood irresolute in the middle of his cabin, and Maud watched him with shining eyes, knowing and telling herself that she knew that her desire was going to be given her. Then he took a bunch of keys from his pocket, detached one, and flung it on the ground. "That's the key," he said. "You will find the bottle in my despatch-box. You may take it if you like." But Maud made no movement to pick up the key. "My dear Thurso," she said, "where are your manners? That really is not the proper way to give me a key." "I won't give it you in any other way," he said. She longed so to pick it up herself that she could scarcely restrain herself from doing it, but she longed also that, strengthened by this first effort, he should make another, give her the key voluntarily. But what if he picked it up himself, and refused to give it her? No; that could not happen. "Then, I'm afraid it must stop where it is," she said. "Good night." He turned with a frown to her.