"I'm tired," he said drearily. "I feel as if the fates had drubbed me mentally, until my sore mind aches. We'll get another vase, Estelle"--for she was picking up the pieces with shaking fingers. "And I tell you, I have come to you to be mended," he went on, almost pitifully. "But I--what can I do?" she whispered. The room faded; she saw the open sea shimmering blue and green and opal; she felt again the love she had hoped she had fought down and put away. "You can stop pretending," he said. "You can give me a little comfort, Estelle, a little love. I have lost faith in everything except you. And--I love you, Estelle," he added gravely. The rush of mingled joy and sorrow made the girl gasp. "But Esmé?" she whispered. "Esmé was a will-o'-the-wisp--a false light on a marsh. You are the solid world. Estelle, I don't know where I am. Esmé has made a fool of me--and I can never care for her again. Will you help me--or see me go to the dogs alone?" The cunning of man, turning the mother-love in woman, which he knows is stronger than passion, to his own ends. Man triumphant, merry, full of strength and hope, she may resist; but man broken, pitiful, needing her, is irresistible. Bertie had sat down on the brown sofa; he was looking at her with dazed eyes. "I'll help you, Bertie. I'll be all I can ... as your friend ... remember, only as your friend." "Child, do you take me for a brute?" he said, as he drew her down beside him. Poor Friendship, lending his cloak once more, standing mournfully as Love flings it over his pink shoulders; knowing so well how the god liked to hide and mock beneath the solid folds. "Oh! I am so tired, Estelle," said Bertie. Friends only--the cloak held firmly. But friends' lips do not meet with a thrill of joy; friends do not know the unrestful happiness which came to these two as they sat hand-in-hand--their two years' sham fight over. CHAPTER XIII "OH, bother!" said Denise Blakeney. "Bother!" "What is it, Den?" Sir Cyril sat on his wife's bed; he was up early, out about the place, arranging the day, looking at his horses, his herd of shorthorns, speaking to the keepers. His men feared Sir Cyril, and served him well. Denise pushed a letter away. She was pretty and fresh in her lace cap, her rose-pink wrapper. "Oh, nothing!" she answered. "It's time to get up, isn't it?" "To-morrow," he said, "it will be time an hour earlier." "Shooting mornings are so long," yawned Denise. "But what, or who, worried you, Den? Why did you exclaim?" An insistent man, he held out his hand for the letter. "Oh! nothing, Cyrrie. No, you mustn't see it. It's only from Esmé, grumbling. I couldn't show it to you. There are things about herself--her health." Denise talked very fast, growing a little breathless. "And she wants a little loan--and I'm short. She was so good to me that time abroad, you know--she--"