And, more than all the rest, he was sustained by that sense of secure radiance that had come to him from Alix herself. Wherever she was, whatever befell her, Alix would be safe. He could not have given way, he could not have consented to see her go, if he had not felt sure of it. So it ended as she had meant it to end. “Of course I’ll help you, dear,” he said. CHAPTER III He saw Alix off next day. Her departure cast consternation through the Bradley household. An unfortunate love affair, the fact that Alix did not wish to marry Jerry Hamble, could not be made to bear the weight of such a sudden mystery. “I always knew those Hambles would do her no good!” cried Rosemary. “The truth is, if you ask me,” said Ruth, “that she wants to go back to France. She’s never really cared about being here at all.” But against this Jack and Francis protested hotly, asserting that Alix liked nothing better than playing games with them. Poor Mrs. Bradley was dismayed. Giles could do nothing to make her understand. “But she’s been happy here; I know she’s been happy,” she said. “I see that you can’t explain to her why she should stay with us. But, oh, Giles, she ought to stay till she is much, much older. We can take her away. I can take her to Edinburgh, to stay with the Raeburns, if she wants to avoid Mr. Hamble—I’ll do anything to keep her.” Giles could only reiterate: “Alix is very wise, Mummy. You must trust her to know best. I think she suspects already that things aren’t happy with her mother; and she wants to be near her.” His mother asked him not another question about madame Vervier. She made no surmises about Owen’s friendship. Giles at moments wondered, with all her ingenuousness, whether some dim suspicion had not entered her mind, as it had entered Toppie’s, and he blessed her for her gift of silence. He thought for a moment that Alix was going to cry when she bade his mother good-bye; tears were in Mrs. Bradley’s eyes. “Darling, whenever you want to come back to us—you will know;—we’ll always be waiting, Alix, dear.” “Good-bye, old thing,” said Rosemary staunchly. “We’ll come to see you in France,” Ruth assured her, “at your Vaudettes place; though I do hate shingle to bathe on.” “All of you must come, whenever you will,” Alix murmured, pale in her little blue buttoned cape. Alix knew what they did not know, that they would never be allowed to come.