Giles went to his little sanctum, and Colin turned his face from the light, bearing pain quietly. Not pain of body alone. Giles had won his way earlier to victory through defeat; but in Colin's case there was no defeat, and no man knew of his strife. He loved; and at one time he had hoped; but when he read what Phyllys was to Giles, he drew back. He would not stand—if he might—in the way of Giles' happiness. CHAPTER XXXII A POSSIBLE COMPLICATION ONCE more at her open window, gazing, not at dim fell-outlines against a starry sky, but into the darkness of a Midland garden, with ancestral trees under a clouded heaven, knelt Phyllys. Another thought had come, another suggestion, touching her more acutely than the first. That earlier flash of light on Mrs. Keith's past, lurid in aspect, had been a weight upon her spirits, the supposition burdening her with a fear lest one day it might be her duty to speak out. Still, she was with Giles; she was sure of his love; she felt confidence in his rectitude; she knew that, whatever might happen, he was dependable. Nothing, she had told herself, could shake that security. And she had not dreamt of this new doubt. The other suspicion had struck at the root of much in her future; but it had not affected her relations with Giles, had not threatened her happiness. This, if true, would sweep away the foundations of all that made for earthly joy. If Giles went, everything went. Hitherto no thought of blame to him had occurred. He was the unconscious partner in another's evil deed; no less ignorant than the rest of the world. Provisionally she had condemned one person, hoping that her conjecture was mistaken; seeking for extenuating circumstances should the conjecture prove true. But if Giles were implicated, if for years "he" had acquiesced, there could be for him no extenuating circumstances. Recalling her chat with Colin, she glanced to an earlier conversation with Giles, and words recurred spoken of Colin:— "He and Mrs. Keith talk as if Colin were a poor man, dependent on Art. It is not so, really. What belongs to me belongs to him. What is mine is his . . . You mistake my meaning. It is a matter of simple duty . . . Years ago I made up my mind that, whatever he might wish, he should have it—even though it might cost me—might cost me—You would not think so if you knew everything! I owe to Colin all—more than I can ever repay." He had spoken this earnestly—from his heart. And Colin could say he had been talking nonsense. Then the new conjecture came, dagger-like— "'Did Giles know?'" Colin did not. No such suspicion had occurred to him. But was Giles in ignorance? "What belongs to me belongs to him! What is mine is his! . . . If you knew everything! . . . I owe to Colin more than I can ever repay!"