“Why didn’t you come then, Geoffrey? I sometimes wondered--you being you!”--with a faint smile. “Because, of course, I knew why you had rushed off to France. Madame de Varigny explained that.” A dull flush mounted to his face. “Did she? I expect she told you merely what was the truth. I went to see her because she had assured me that she could stop your marriage with Tormarin--could interfere in some way to prevent it. That was why I went to France.... But when she told me her blackguardly scheme--how she had planned and plotted to conceal the fact that Tormarin’s wife was alive--_and why_ she had done it, I would have no hand in anything that followed. I’m no saint”--a brief, ironical smile flitted across his face--“but there are some methods at which even I draw the line.” “So--that was why you stayed away?” “That was why. I wanted you, Jean--God only knows how I wanted you!--but I couldn’t try to force your hand at such a time. I couldn’t profit by a damnable scheme like that.” Jean’s eyes grew soft as she realised that beneath all the impetuous arrogance and dominant demands of the man’s temperament there yet lay something fine and clean and straight--difficult to get at, perhaps, but which could yet rise, in answer to a sense of honour and fairness with which she had not credited him, and take command of his whole nature. “I’m glad--glad you didn’t come, Geoffrey,” she said gently. “Glad you--couldn’t.” “I don’t know that I’m glad about it,” he returned with a grim candour. “I simply couldn’t do it, and that’s all there is to it. But I’ve come now, Jean. I’ve come because I want you to give me just the right to look after you. I’m not asking for anything. I only want to serve you--if you’ll let me--just to be near you. If Tormarin were free, I would not have come to you again. I know I should have no chance. But he’s not free. Does that give me a chance, Jean? If it doesn’t, I’ll take myself off--I’ll never bother you again. I’ll try Africa--big game shooting”--with a short laugh. “But if it does----” He paused and waited for her answer. The intensity of longing in his eyes was the sole indication of the emotion that stirred within him--an emotion held in check by a stern self-control that seemed to Jean to be part of this new, changed lover of hers. Surely, in the months which had elapsed since she had fled from him on Dartmoor, he had fought with his devils and cast them out! She held out her hands to him. “Geoffrey, I’m so sorry--but I’m afraid it doesn’t. I wish--I wish I could give you any other answer. But, you see, it isn’t marrying--it’s love that matters. And all my love is given.” He took her hands in his and held them gently with that strange, new restraint he seemed to have learned.