But she--Lady Tilchester--my friend! Oh, I could not take her lover from her! She who had always been so good to me, from the first moment of our acquaintance, kind and sympathetic and dear! I owed her deepest gratitude. If one of us must suffer, it should certainly be I. I could not play her false like this. Of course she loved him still! He was often with her, I knew, and her face had softened when first she spoke of him. They had known each other for fourteen years, she had said. I seemed to see it all. This was her "mid-summer madness," and Antony had gone away to travel for several years, and then returned to her again. They had probably been so happy together until I came upon the scene. Well, they can be happy once more when he forgets me. I, at least, shall not stand in the way. Dear Margaret, I am not so mean as that! You shall keep your lover, and I will never have mine! All my life I shall hate the road to Versailles. "Go at top speed," I told my chauffeur. I felt if we might dash against a tree and have done with the whole matter, it would be the best thing in the end. The rapid motion through the air revived me. I had my wits about me when we drew up at the hotel door. "I am going to Switzerland to-night," I said to McGreggor. "Pack up everything." She is a maid of wonderful sense. "Very well, ma'am," she said, without the slightest appearance of surprise. I sat down and wrote a telegram to Antony. It would just catch him. He was to leave by the night mail: "I have seen Muriel and I know. Lady Tilchester has been always kind to me. Do not come. Good-bye." Then I took it to the post-office myself. That night we left for Lucerne--McGreggor and Roy and I. VI It being August, crowds of tourists faced me everywhere. Lucerne, which I had always heard was such a pretty place, filled me with loathing. I only stayed a day there. At last, after stopping in several places, we arrived one afternoon at Zuïebad. Here, at least, there were no tourists, only ugly rheumatic invalids, and unattractive. What made me choose such a place I do not know, unless it was because I happened to see the name printed large upon the map. Any place would do. I had not felt much in my rapid rush. A numbness, as of a limb cut off, an utter indifference to everything in life. But when I found myself alone in the vast pine-woods, an anguish, as of physical pain, took possession of me. Every tree spoke to me of Antony. The surroundings were all perfect. What would he do? Would he follow me and try to persuade me to alter my mind? Oh no, he could never do that. He would know that this must be final. What had been his idea all along? How could he think I should never find out, and having done so, that I would ever accept such a position? Or was it that he, like all his world, thought so lightly of passing from one love to another that fidelity to Lady Tilchester was among the catalogue of things that do not count.