"I have been wicked," she said, "I have been wrong. But perhaps there were excuses. Until one has felt love, real love, Guy, one doesn't realize its claims or the duties one owes it. I was ambitious. I liked William well enough. He interested me and stimulated me. I felt proud to think that I was to be the companion of a man who knew and had done so much. But now the mere thought of that companionship fills me with fear. Not fear of him, but fear of the treachery I should have done my nature and myself if I had married him. I don't know what will happen, but here and now, Guy, whatever may be the outcome, I tell you that I love you, and I swear to you, however wrong it may be, whatever violence I may be doing to my plighted troth, I tell you that, however great the unworthiness, I will be yours and yours alone. I know it's wrong, and yet, somehow, I feel it can't be wrong. I don't understand, but--but----" He took her in his arms once more and held her. It was late, and he was going, and was bidding her farewell. He knelt before her and took her hand, bowing over it and kissing it. "Good-night," he said, "my lady, my love, my bride! I am with you now, and shall be with you always in spirit until we are one--until the end of our lives. And whatever may be in store in the immediate future I shall be watching and waiting, I shall be guarding you and shielding you as well as I can, and if things come to the worst, I shall be ready, and we will count the world well lost, as other wise lovers have done, for the sacred cause and in the holy service of Love." So he bowed over her slim white hand and kissed it, looking in his beauty and confidence and strength like any knight of old kneeling before the lady he was pledged to serve. And when he was gone, and she was alone in her room up-stairs, Marjorie was filled with a joy and exhilaration such as she had never known before. Yet there seemed hanging over the little rosy landscape, the brightly-lit landscape in which she moved, a dark and massive cloud. She dreamt thus. She dreamt that this cloud grew blacker and blacker, and still more heavy, sinking lower and lower towards her. Then she saw her lover as a knight in armour cutting upwards with a gleaming sword until the cloud departed and rushed away, and all was once more bathed in sunlight. She knew the name of that sword. It was not Excalibur, it was Love. CHAPTER V A CONSPIRACY OF SCIENTISTS