Eve had wondered whether James Canterton was suffering. It is not given to many of us to feel acutely, or to travel beyond the shallows of an emotional self-pity, but Canterton had much of the spirit of the Elizabethans—men built for a big, adventurous, passionate play. He had slept no more than Eve had done, and had spent most of the night walking in the woods and lanes and over the wastes of heather and furze. He, too, was trying to realise that this experience was at an end, that a burning truth had been shown him—that they had flown too near the sun, and the heat had scorched their wings. Yet his mood was one of rebellion. He was asking why and wherefore, thrusting that masterful creativeness of his against the conventional barriers that the woman had refused to challenge. For the first time his vitality was running in complete and tumultuous opposition to the conventional currents that had hardly been noticed by him till his will was defied. The scorn of theory was upon him, and he felt the strong man’s desire to brush the seeming artificiality aside. Had he not made self-restraint his own law, and was he to herd with men who put their signatures openly to the sexual compact, and broke their vows in secret? Eve was afraid, not only for herself, but for him and for Lynette. But, good God! had he ever intended to force her to sacrifice herself, to defy society, or to enter into a conspiracy of passion? Was it everything or nothing with such a woman? If so, she had shown a touching magnanimity and wisdom, and uttered a cry that was heroic. But he could not believe it; her pleading that this love of theirs was mad and impossible. It was too pathetic, her confessing that she could not trust herself. He was strong enough to be trusted for them both. The night had made everything more sacred. He would refuse to let her sacrifice their comradeship. Canterton, too, saw the dawn come up, and the sun appear as a great splash of gold. He was standing on the south-east edge of the Wilderness, with the gloom of the larch wood behind him, and as the sun rose, its level rays struck on the stream in the valley, and the deep pool among the willows where the water lay as black and as still as glass. A clear head and a clean body. The whim that seized him had logic and symbolism. He walked down over the wet grass to the pool among the willows, where a punt lay moored to a landing stage, and a diving board projected over the water. Canterton stripped and plunged, and went lashing round and round the pool, feeling a clean vigour in his body, as his heart and blood answered the cold sting of the water. It was half-past six when he made his way back up the hill to the gardens. A glorious day had come, and the dew still sparkled on the flowers. Wandering across the lawns he saw an auburn head at an open window, and a small hand waving a towel. “Daddy, I’m coming—I’m coming!”