Dr. Rob laid his hand on her arm. "My dear, I am an old fellow, and all my life I have made it my business to know, without being told. You have been coming through a strain,--a prolonged period of strain, sometimes harder, sometimes easier, but never quite relaxed,--a strain such as few women could have borne. It was not only with him; you had to keep it up towards us all. I knew, if it were to continue, you must soon have the relief of some one with whom to share the secret,--some one towards whom you could be yourself occasionally. And when I found you had been writing to him here, sending the letter to be posted in Cairo (how like a woman, to strain at a gnat, after swallowing such a camel!), awaiting its return day after day, then obliged to read it to him yourself, and take down his dictated answer, which I gathered from your faces when I entered was his refusal of your request to come and see him, well, it seemed to me about time you were made to realise that you might as well confide in an old fellow who, in common with all the men who knew you in South Africa, would gladly give his right hand for the Honourable Jane." Jane looked at him, her eyes full of gratitude. For the moment she could not speak. "But tell me, my dear," said Dr. Rob, "tell me, if you can: why does the lad put from him so firmly that which, if indeed it might be his for the asking, would mean for him so great, so wonderful, so comforting a good?" "Ah, doctor," said Jane, "thereby hangs a tale of sad mistrust and mistake, and the mistrust and mistake, alas, were mine. Now, while you see Margery, I will prepare for walking; and as we go through the wood I will try to tell you the woeful thing which came between him and me and placed our lives so far apart. Your wise advice will help me, and your shrewd knowledge of men and of the human heart may find us a way out, for indeed we are shut in between Migdol and the sea." As Jane crossed the hall and was about to mount the stairs, she looked towards the closed library door. A sudden fear seized her, lest the strain of listening to that tale of Dr. Rob's had been too much for Garth. None but she could know all it must have awakened of memory to be told so vividly of the dying soldiers whose heads were pillowed on her breast, and the strange coincidence of those words, "A mere boy--and to suffer so!" She could not leave the house without being sure he was safe and well. And yet she instinctively feared to intrude when he imagined himself alone for an hour. Then Jane, in her anxiety, did a thing she had never done before. She opened the front door noiselessly, passed round the house to the terrace, and when approaching the open window of the library, trod on the grass border, and reached it without making the faintest sound. Never before had she come upon him unawares, knowing he hated and dreaded the thought of an unseen intrusion on his privacy. But now--just this once-- Jane looked in at the window.