‘And yet, didn’t you tell us, that of all your friends not one really denied in their hearts your—what they would call, I suppose—your _identity_; except that poor little offended old lady. And even she, if my intuition is worth a penny piece, even she when you go soon and talk to her will own that she did know you, and that it was not because you were a stranger that she was offended, but because you so ungenerously pretended to be one. That was a little mad, now, if you like!’ ‘Oh yes,’ said Lawford, ‘I am going to ask her forgiveness. I don’t know what I didn’t vow to take her for a peace-offering if the chance should ever come—and the courage—to make my peace with her. But now that the chance has come, and I think the courage, it is the desire that’s gone. I don’t seem to care either way. I feel as if I had got past making my peace with any one.’ But this time no answer helped him out. ‘After all,’ he went plodding on, ‘there is more than just the mere day to day to consider. And one doesn’t realise that one’s face actually _is_ one’s fortune without a shock. And that _that_ gone, one is, as your brother said, just like a bee come back to the wrong hive. It undermines,’ he smiled rather bitterly, ‘one’s views rather. And it certainly shifts one’s friends. If it hadn’t been just for my old’—he stopped dead, and again pushed slowly on—‘if it hadn’t been for our old friend, Mr Bethany, I doubt if we should now have had a soul on our side. I once read somewhere that wolves always chase the old and weak and maimed out of the pack. And after all, what do _we_ do? Where do we keep the homeless and the insane? And yet, you know,’ he added ruminatingly, ‘it is not as if mine was ever a particularly lovely or lovable face! While as for the poor wretch behind it, well, I really cannot see what meaning, or life even, he had before—’ ‘Before?’ Lawford met bravely the clear whimsical eyes. ‘Before, I was Sabathiered.’ Grisel laughed outright. ‘You think,’ he retorted almost bitterly, ‘you think I am talking like a child.’ ‘Yes,’ she sighed cheerfully, ‘I was quite envying you.’ ‘Well, there I am,’ said Lawford inconsequently. ‘And now; well, now, I suppose, the whole thing’s to begin again. I can’t help beginning to wonder what the meaning of it all is; why one’s duty should always seem so very stupid a thing. And then, too, what _can_ there be on earth that even a buried Sabathier could desire?’ He glanced up in a really animated perplexity at the still, dark face turned in the evening light towards the darkening valley. And perplexity deepened into a disquieted frown—like that of a child who is roused suddenly from a daydream by the half-forgotten question of a stranger. He turned his eyes almost furtively away as if afraid of disturbing her; and for awhile they sat in silence... At last he turned again almost shyly. ‘I hope some day you will let me bring my daughter to see you.’