immortal part of her still lived, and was incurably deaf to any human call. She did not hear him, she could not hear him; never, never, all down the ages could she hear him again. The irremediable separation was only made more ghastly, more appalling, by the tantalizing proximity of her. He could see her, hear her, know her well. And all the knowledge was not only profitless, but an aggravation of his misery. He saw now what a fool he had been to tie himself anew in the bondage of desire; an eternal parting would have been far less painful, far less maddeningly cruel, than this grim and nugatory reunion. Again and again he battled fiercely to win the recognition that he knew in his heart of hearts to be for ever beyond his reach. He was incessantly trying to lead Ivor Restormel into some discussion of his secret terrors, hoping that so Isabel’s voice might speak once more, and possibly, in time, Isabel’s self be aroused again. But the task was hard, and Ivor reluctant to be made the mouthpiece of that inmost self of his whose identity--whose very existence, even--he never suspected. And then it was that Kingston found himself hating the boy. The boy stood between himself and Isabel; for ever must stand between himself and Isabel. And yet the boy contained the secret treasure--_was_, in a worldly sense, the secret treasure; he could not have the one for a neighbour without putting up with the presence of the other, without keeping the boy for ever at his side, and tolerating endlessly the revelations of the boy’s uninteresting personality. Kingston approved of the young fellow well enough in himself; he was amiable, kind, pleasant to look at and talk to. In ordinary circumstances Kingston would have liked him and never thought twice about him. Now, however, his liking was complicated by a resentment that at times deepened into something like hate. The boy was keeping so much from him. It was not the boy’s fault, of course, yet that did not make the situation any easier to bear. He alternately liked and disliked him with a vigour for which the boy’s own personality was entirely innocent.