'Oh, yes, it ends,' said Trix Trevalla. Her face felt burning hot; she wondered whether its colour tallied with the sensation. Despair was in her heart; she had lied again, and lied for no ultimate good. She rather startled Lady Barmouth by asking for a glass of port. Lord Barmouth, in high good-humour, poured it out gallantly, and then, with obvious tact, shifted the talk to a discussion of his son's public services, pointing out incidentally how the qualities that had rendered these possible had in his own case displayed themselves in a sphere more private, but not, as he hoped, less useful. Mervyn agreed that his father had been quite as useful as himself. Even Mrs. Bonfill stifled a yawn. The end of dinner came. Trix escaped into the garden, leaving the ladies in the drawing-room, the men still at the table. Her brain was painting scenes with broad rapid strokes of the brush. She saw herself telling Mervyn, she saw his face, his voice, his horrified amazement. Then came she herself waiting while he told the others. Next there was the facing of the family. What would they do? Would they turn her out? That would be a bitter short agony. Or would they not rather keep her in prison and school her again? She would come to them practically a pauper now. Besides all there had been against her before, she would now stand confessed a pauper and a fool. One, too, who had lied about the thing to the very end! In the dark of evening the great house loomed like a very prison. The fountains were silent, the birds at rest; a heavy stillness added to the dungeon-like effect. She walked quickly, furiously, along one path after another, throwing uneasy glances over her shoulder, listening for a footfall, as though she were in literal truth being tracked and hunted from her lair. The heart was out of her: at last her courage was broken. What early hardships, what Vesey Trevalla, what Beaufort Chance himself could not do, that Fricker and the Barmouths had done--Fricker's idea of what was necessary in business relations and the Barmouth way of feeling about things. There was no fight left in Trix Trevalla. Unless it were for one desperate venture, the height of courage or of cowardice--which she knew not, and it signified nothing. She had ceased to think. She had little but a blind instinct urging her to hide herself. 'This is very fortunate, Mortimer,' observed Barmouth over his port. He did not take coffee; Mervyn did. 'The best possible thing under the circumstances. I don't think I need say much more to her.' 'I think not. She understands now how we feel. Perhaps we could hardly expect her to realise it until she had enjoyed the full opportunities her stay here has given her.' Who now should call him narrow-minded? 'I have very little fear for the future,' said Mervyn.