However, their unuttered thoughts of the new-comer dominated every remark they made, and it was a relief when evening drew near, and each minute brought nearer and nearer the abrupt termination of their solitude. Isabel had telegraphed her joy at being permitted to come, and her intention to do so immediately. Orders were given to prepare for her, and she was expected to arrive in time to dress for dinner. When, therefore, the carriage returned empty from the station, six miles away, after having kept dinner waiting for half an hour, both Kingston and Gundred felt their grievances redoubled. Kingston saw how right he had been to detest the very notion of this disorderly stranger, and Gundred realized more than ever how slack and neglectful of her husband it had been not to forbid the importation of such a disconcerting element into their ordered tranquillity. Meanwhile a telegram arrived, explaining that Isabel had lost her train, had taken a ‘special,’ and hoped to arrive in an hour or so. Again the carriage was sent, and, after another tedious interval of expectation the lovers were told that its lights could be seen returning up the hill. To ease the arrival of a shy, desolate colonial Gundred decided to receive her in the great hall itself. Accordingly, at the news, Kingston and Gundred passed on through the dim, gaunt passages of outwork and bastion until they found themselves at last in the heart of the big Drum Tower. The hall was a vast flagged expanse, walled in by high, dusty glooms, into whose recesses no light of any feeble lamp or lantern could penetrate. Grime and weary antiquity seemed to permeate it, and the air was close and heavy with a scent of mouldered greatness. Kingston, as he went, began insensibly to play a game with himself. He picked out the names of four moods, to be repeated to himself, one for each flag on which he trod; and his fate, his whole attitude to Isabel was to be foretold by the paving-stone on which his foot should rest at the instant of the new-comer’s alighting. His fancy was taken from the game which children play with their cherry-stones, and the moods he chose were ‘Love, Hate, Fear, Contempt.’ In turn he repeated them as he stepped from flag to flag, careful always never to set his foot on any boundary line. ‘Love, Hate, Fear, Contempt,’ he murmured inwardly from stone to stone, while Gundred walked briskly at his side, her clear mind a hundred years removed from any such silly infantile fantasies. Now they were drawing near the huge, gaping doorway. There were not so many of the great squares left to tread, and the jingling approach of the carriage could be more and more clearly heard. Kingston’s heart began to beat with the artificial excitement of his game. ‘Love, Hate, Fear, Contempt....’ The carriage had driven up.... ‘Love, Hate, Fear, Contempt....’ He lingered, hoping that the stranger would alight appropriately on the word ‘Contempt.’ In vain. There was some delay.