"That was all we might keep, you and I--our faith. Honour binds each of us to someone else. But"--his voice vibrating--"honour doesn't bind you to Maryon Rooke! If you go with him, you betray our love--the part of it that nothing can touch or spoil if we so will it. You won't do that, Nan. . . . You _can't_ do it!" She knew, then, that she would have to go back, go back and keep faith with Roger--and keep that deeper faith which love itself demanded. Her head drooped, and she stretched out her hands as though seeking something of which they might lay hold. Peter took them into his and held them. After a while a slight tremor ran through her body, and she drew herself away from him, relinquishing his hands. "I'll go back," she said. "You've won, Peter. I can't . . . hurt . . . our love." To Sandy the time seemed immeasurably long as he waited on the further side of the closed door, but at last they came to him--Peter, stern and rather strained-looking, and Nan with tear-bright eyes and a face from which every vestige of colour had vanished. "Get a taxi, will you, Sandy?" said Peter. Perhaps Sandy's face asked the question his lips dared not utter, for Nan nodded to him with a twisted little smile. "Yes, Sandy boy, I'm going back." "Thank God!" He wrung her hands and then went off in search of a taxi. Nan glanced round her a trifle nervously. "Maryon may be here at any moment," she said. "Something's gone wrong with the car and he's taken it round to the garage to get it put right." "We shall be off directly," answered Peter. "See"--he pointed down the street--"here comes Sandy with a taxi for us." He spoke reassuringly, as though to a frightened child. In a few minutes they had started, the taxi slipping swiftly away through the lamp-lit streets. It had turned a corner and was out of sight by the time the parlourmaid, hearing the sound of the street door closing, had hurried upstairs only to find an empty studio. Nor could she give Rooke, on his return, the slightest information as to what had become of his guests--the lady, or the two gentlemen who, she told him, had called shortly afterwards, apparently expecting to find Miss Davenant there. Meanwhile the taxi had carried them swiftly to Peter's house, where he hurried Nan and Sandy up to his own sanctum, instructing the taxi-driver to wait below. "We've just time for a few sandwiches before we start," he said. He rang the bell for his servant and gave his orders in quick, authoritative tones. Nan shook her head. She felt as though a single mouthful would choke her. But Peter insisted with a quiet determination she found herself unable to withstand, and gradually the food and wine brought back a little colour into her wan face, though her eyes were still full of a dumb anguish and every now and then her mouth quivered piteously.