"Sure of what you say--sure of what she is to him--sure that if he goes on he will--" She stopped. He nodded. "It means--" she said and stopped again. "No adventure, no incident, but a going out from all that this life has to offer." "You mean," she insisted, "you mean----?" "Death," said Melville starkly, and for a space both stood without a word. She winced, and remained looking into his eyes. Then she spoke again. "Mr. Melville, tell him to come back to me." "And----?" "Tell him to come back to me, or"--a sudden note of passion rang in her voice--"if I have no hold upon him, let him go his way." "But--" said Melville. "I know," she cried, with her face set, "I know. But if he is mine he will come to me, and if he is not-- Let him dream his dream." Her clenched hand tightened as she spoke. He saw in her face she would say no more, that she wanted urgently to leave it there. He turned again towards the staircase. He glanced at her and went down. As he looked up from the bend of the stairs she was still standing in the light. He was moved to proclaim himself in some manner her adherent, but he could think of nothing better than: "Whatever I can do I will." And so, after a curious pause, he departed, rather stumblingly, from her sight. IV After this interview it was right and proper that Melville should have gone at once to Chatteris, but the course of events in the world does occasionally display a lamentable disregard for what is right and proper. Points of view were destined to crowd upon him that day--for the most part entirely unsympathetic points of view. He found Mrs. Bunting in the company of a boldly trimmed bonnet in the hall, waiting, it became clear, to intercept him. As he descended, in a state of extreme preoccupation, the boldly trimmed bonnet revealed beneath it a white-faced, resolute person in a duster and sensible boots. This stranger, Mrs. Bunting made apparent, was Lady Poynting Mallow, one of the more representative of the Chatteris aunts. Her ladyship made a few enquiries about Adeline with an eye that took Melville's measure, and then, after agreeing to a number of the suggestions Mrs. Bunting had to advance, proposed that he should escort her back to her hotel. He was much too exercised with Adeline to discuss the proposal. "I walk," she said. "And we go along the lower road." He found himself walking. She remarked, as the Bunting door closed behind them, that it was always a comfort to have to do with a man; and there was a silence for a space. I don't think at that time Melville completely grasped the fact that he had a companion. But presently his meditations were disturbed by her voice. He started. "I beg your pardon," he said. "That Bunting woman is a fool," repeated Lady Poynting Mallow. There was a slight interval for consideration. "She's an old friend of mine," said Melville. "Quite possibly," said Lady Poynting Mallow.