She realized at once that she shouldn’t have said it, but she had left so much unsaid during the last few weeks and now with both George and Prince Aglipogue gone she felt that the seal had been removed from her lips. She felt too, in a curious way, that Gloria though so many years older, was in a way her special charge—that she was entering a new life and must be guided. Gloria looked at her with startled eyes. “What nonsense! You’re too romantic, Ruth!” “But, Gloria, you do love him; you can’t deny it. Didn’t you tell me once that he is the only one you’ve ever really loved?” “It takes two to make a marriage, Ruth.” “But he loves you too.” “What makes you think that?” “He told me so.” “Even so, and even if I would marry again, you must realize that men very rarely marry the women they love. That’s why we separated, I think. We married for love and that is always disastrous. I should never have married at all. Tomorrow we’ll go back to town and Percy and I will each go our separate ways and forget the horrible nightmare of this place. It was just chance that we met—a weird freak of coincidence. He didn’t want it; neither did I.” There was nothing that Ruth could answer and presently Gloria went on: “No woman was meant to have both a career and a husband; lots of them try it—most women in fact, but usually they come to grief. It isn’t written in the stars that one woman should have both loves, art and a husband.” Ruth thought of Nels and Dorothy. Would they come to grief she wondered. As for herself she didn’t have to choose—love didn’t come and art had turned its back on her. She wondered if it was written in the stars that she should have neither art nor love. Then she remembered Pendragon’s quotation, “The stars incline, but do not compel.” So many things had happened here perhaps another miracle would be performed. She wondered why Gloria said nothing about Pendragon’s sudden recovery. It was a relief not to see Prince Aglipogue at the luncheon table. The dinner guests of the night before had all returned to their own homes. Aglipogue was gone, and Ruth wondered if Angela would be troubled, because, for once, there was an uneven number of people at the table. She did look a bit troubled, though she was trying hard to conceal it. An engagement announced and broken within twenty-four hours was rather trying. Still she was smiling: “We’ve got news of your servant, Gloria dear,—rather horrid news. It’s quite a shock—a bad way to end a pleasant Christmas party, even though he was only a servant, and not a very good one.” She paused, but no one came to her rescue with questions or information and she went on: “They found him in the snow—he must have tried to walk to the station and got lost—he was dead—frozen—and he had the—that horrible beast with him—the dead snake wound round his body.” Her voice broke hysterically and she shivered with horror.