Giles for a moment contemplated the hope. Then he rejected it. “It sounds to me like the truth,” was all that he could find. It sounded to him too horribly like the truth. Something dry and cold breathed through Alix’s few words, and to his apprehension it was the dryness, the coldness of her despair. For if Alix knew that she loved her mother’s lover, what must not her despair be? Only one gleam of ugliest hope he suddenly saw and clung to;—in that case would she not have snatched at any refuge; would she not in that case have married Jerry on any terms, if only in order to escape her jeopardy? Giles felt himself swinging in the void. How could one tell what was at the bottom of Alix’s letter? Was it not even possible that, with all the revelations that had overpowered her, she had not yet thought of her mother as involved further than with Owen? Might she not think of the truth, to which he had helplessly assented when she had asked him for it, as applying only to the past? Might she not still have her ignorances? Madame Vervier would have done all in her power to preserve them. He was not thinking of himself or of Jerry. He was thinking only of Alix, and his absorption was so deep and so bitter that he was not aware how long Jerry, sitting there beside him, had been observing him, until, looking up, he met his eyes. “It’s pretty sickening, isn’t it?” said Jerry. Giles did not quite know to which aspect of the disaster he referred, but he assented. “Yes, it’s pretty sickening.” Then he saw that Jerry referred to his disaster. “I’m not an utterly blind and complacent young donkey,” said Jerry, swinging his foot, while his voice trembled a little. “You mind as much as I do; and you mind more, because you really love her more. Whatever you may have been in the Spring, you’re in love with Alix now, and I must say that I call it a rotten shame.” “My dear boy!” Giles ejaculated, faintly smiling. “You’d have stood by and helped us. You’d have helped us to the end; I see that,” said Jerry. “And you’d have been satisfied in feeling her safe, in feeling that England had got her, even if you hadn’t. And now you’ve lost even that.” “It looks like it, doesn’t it?” said Giles. There was really no use in denying anything to Jerry; but at the same time this was the final bitterness. He had never been so sure of wanting Jerry for Alix. “Perhaps there’s still some hope,” he said suddenly. “I’ll have to go over, of course, as soon as I’ve had my viva, and see whether there’s any hope.” “Do you mean for me or for you?” Jerry inquired. “I mean for you,” said Giles. “You’d make her happier than I should,” said Jerry, swinging his foot and looking a little as if he might cry. “You’re much more the ideal English lover than I am. Carry her off from him; for yourself.—It’s only what I deserve.”