And she, Jean, had stood between Nesta and the fulfilment of that dream, forever forbidding her entrance to her woman’s kingdom. She saw it all now with a terrible clarity of vision, understood to the full the two alternatives which faced her--to go with Blaise, as he implored, or to send him--her man, the man she loved--hack to Nesta. There was no longer any middle course. A voice sounded in her ears. “_No true happiness ever came of running away from duty. And if ever I’m up against such a thing--a choice like this--I hope to God I’d be able to hang on, to run straight, even if it half-killed me to do it!_” The words sounded so clear and distinct that Jean half raised her head to see who spoke them. And then, in an overwhelming rush of memory, she recognised that it was no actual voice she heard but the mental echo of her own words to Nick--to Nick at the time when he had been passing through a like fire of fierce temptation. How easily, in her young, untried ignorance, the words had fallen from her lips as she had urged Nick to renounce his fixed resolve! Such eminently wise and excellent counsel! And how little--how crassly little had she realised at the time the huge demand that she was making! She had spoken as though it were comparatively easy to reject the wrong and choose the right--to follow the stern and narrow path of Duty, through the mists and utter darkness that enshrouded it, up to those shining heights which lie beyond human sight--the outposts of Eternal Heaven itself. _Easy!_.... Oh, God!.... ***** When at last Jean uncovered her face and lifted it to meet the set gaze of the man beside her, it was wan and ravaged “the face of one who has come through some fierce purgatory of torment.” “Well?” he demanded, his voice roughened because he found himself unable to steady it with that strained and altered face upturned to his. “Well? Are you going to send me back to Nesta?” She did not answer his question. Instead, she put another. “Do you think she--loves you?” He stared. “Nesta? Yes. As far as her sort can love, I believe she does.” Jean nodded, as though it were the answer she had expected. “Blaise... I’m going to send you back to her. I’m sure now. I _know_. It’s the only thing we can do... We must say good-bye--altogether--never see each other again.” “Never?” The word came draggingly. “Never. It--it would be too hard for us, Blaise, to see each other.” “Yes,” he answered slowly. “It would be too hard.” They were both silent. The minutes ticked away unregarded. Time had ceased to count. This farewell was till the end of time. “Blaise--” All the resonance had gone out of her voice. It sounded flat and tired. “You--you will go back to her?” “Yes, I will go back.” She stretched out her hands flutteringly. “Then go.... go soon, Blaise! I--I can’t bear very much more.”