They stooped together under the half-raised awning of the French window, and entered the dim, flower-scented drawing-room side by side. The young man threw off his hat, and she saw the silky ripple of his nut-brown hair, his smooth forehead, his bright-glancing hazel eyes, all the happy pleasantness of his countenance. Before she had had time to reconsider her dislike of him, he had caught her in his arms and kissed her hair and face, whispering little words of love between the kisses. For one paralyzed moment Milly suffered these dreadful words, these horrible caresses. Then exerting the strength of frenzy, she pushed him from her and bounded to the other side of the room, entrenching herself behind the big rosewood table with its smug mats and vases and albums. "You brute! you brute! you hateful cad!" she stammered with trembling lips; "how dare you touch me?" George Goring stared at her with startled eyes. "Mildred! Dearest! Good God! What's gone wrong?" "Where's my husband?" she asked, in a voice sharp with anger and terror. "I want to go--I must leave this horrid place at once." "Your husband?" It was Goring's turn to feel himself plunged into the midst of a nightmare, and he grew almost as pale as Milly. How in Heaven's name was he going to manage her? She looked very ill and must of course be delirious. That would have been alarming in any case, and this particular form of delirium was excruciatingly painful. "Yes, my husband--where is he? I shall tell him how you've dared to insult me. I must go. This is your house--I must leave it at once." Goring did not attempt to come near her. He spoke very quietly. "Try and remember, Mildred; Stewart is not here. He will not even be in England till to-morrow. You are alone with me. Hadn't you better go to bed again and--" he was about to say, "wait until Miss Timson comes," but as it was possible that the advent of the person she had wished him to summon might now irritate her, he substituted--"and keep quiet? I promise not to come near you if you don't wish to see me." "I am alone here with you?" Milly repeated, slowly, and pressed her hand to her forehead. "Good God," she moaned to herself, "what can have happened?" "Yes. For Heaven's sake, go and lie down. I expect the doctor can give you something to soothe your nerves and then perhaps you'll remember." She made a gesture of fierce impatience. "You think I'm mad, but I'm not. I have been mad and I am myself again; only I can't remember anything that's happened since I went out of my mind. I insist upon your telling me. Who are you? I never saw you before to my knowledge." Her voice, her attitude were almost truculent as she faced him, her right hand dragging at the loose clasp of a big photograph album. Every word, every look, was agony to Goring, but he controlled himself by an effort.