"Oh, my dear, _dear_ man--_why_ did you tell me? Why did you make everything so hard for me and yourself?--Oh, God--let me be weak for just one little minute--only one little minute!--I love you, Kenneth Speed, just as you love me--we fit, don't we, as if the world had been made for us as well as we for ourselves! Oh, what a man _I_ could have made of you, and what a woman _you_ could have made of me! Dearest, I'm so sorry.... When you've gone I shall curse myself for all this.... Oh, my dear, my dear...." She sobbed passionately against his breast, and then, suddenly escaping from his arms, began to speak in a voice more like her usual one. "You must go now. There's nothing we can do. Please, _please_ go now. No, no--don't kiss me.... Just go.... And let's forgive each other for this scene.... Go, please go.... Good-night.... No, I won't listen to you.... I want you to go.... Good night.... You haven't said a word, I know, and I don't want you to. There's nothing to say at all. Good night.... Good night...." He found himself outside in High Street as in some strange incomprehensible dream.... CHAPTER FIVE I All the way back to Millstead joy was raging in his heart, trampling down all his woes and defying him to be miserable. Nothing in the world--not his unhappiness with Helen, or the hatred that Millstead had for him, or the perfidy of his own soul--could drive out that crowning, overmastering triumph--the knowledge that Clare loved him. For the moment he saw no difficulties, no dangers, no future that he could not easily bear. Even if he were never to see Clare again, he felt that the knowledge that she loved him would be an adequate solace to his mind for ever. He was happy--deliriously, eternally happy. Helen's silences, the school's ragging, the Head's sinister coldness, were bereft of all their powers to hurt him; he had a secret armour, proof against all assault. It seemed to him that he could understand how the early Christians, fortified by some such inward armour, had walked calm-eyed and happy into the arena of lions. He did not go straight back to the school, but took a detour along the Deepersdale road; he wanted to think, and hug his happiness, and eventually calm it before seeing Helen. Then he wondered what sort of an explanation he should give her of his absence; for, of course, she would have received by this time full accounts of the ragging. In the end he decided that he had better pretend to have been knocked a little silly by the blow on his head and to have taken a walk into the country without any proper consciousness of what he was doing. He returned to Lavery's about eleven o'clock, admitting himself by his own private key. In the corridor leading to his own rooms, Helen suddenly ran into his arms imploring him to tell her if he was hurt, where he had been, what had happened, and so on.