Lord Fordyce had hardly ever spent this season away from his mother, who was a very old lady now, and deeply devoted to him; but the imperative desire to be near his adored overcame any other feeling, and he, with the Princess and her son and father, was due to arrive at Heronac on the day before Christmas Eve. He ran across Michael at the Ritz the night before he left Paris. They were both dining with parties, and nodded across the room, and then afterwards in the hall had a few words. "To-morrow I am going down to Heronac, Michael," Henry said. "Where do you intend to spend the festive season? Here, I suppose?" "Yes, it is as good as anywhere," Michael returned. "I felt I could not stand the whole thing at Arranstoun. I have been away from England so long, I must get used to these old anniversaries again gradually. Here one is free." They looked into each other's faces and Henry noticed that Michael had not quite got his old exuberant expression of the vivid joy of life--he was paler and even a little haggard, if so splendid a creature could look that! "I suppose he has been going the pace over here," Henry thought, and wondered why Michael's manner should be a little constrained. Then they shook hands with their usual cordiality and said good-night. And Michael prepared to go on to a supper party, with a feeling of wild rebellion in his heart. The sight of his old friend and the knowledge that he was on his way to join Sabine drove him almost mad again. "I suppose they will be formally engaged in the New Year. I wonder how my little girl is bearing it--if she is half as miserable as I am, God comfort her," he cried to himself; and then he felt he could not stand Miss Daisy Van der Horn, and getting into his motor he told the chauffeur to drive into the Bois instead of to the supper. Here among the dark trees he could think. It was all perfectly impossible, and no happiness could possibly come to Henry either--unless he succeeded in consoling Sabine when she should be his wife. And this was perhaps the bitterest thought of all--that she should ever be consoled as Henry's wife! Then the extreme strangeness of Henry's still being in ignorance of his and Sabine's relations struck him. She had evidently not yet had the courage to tell the truth, and so the thing would come as a shock--and what would happen then? Who could say? In any case, Henry could not feel he had not come up to the scratch. Would Sabine ever tell Henry the whole story? He felt sure she would not. But how could things be expected to go on with the years? It was all unthinkable now that it had come so close.