He did it by cleverly working into his talk a little story whose real meaning no one but Victoria understood. For the audience it was but a bright little bit of folk-lore of upper India. For Victoria, he might as well have struck her across the face. It was cruel; it was even vulgarly cruel, which is brutal, it was vindictive and perhaps cowardly, but the man was smarting under a long continued bitterness and he had at last turned and with closed eyes struck back savagely. The exalted mood which had brought this about, was with him during the rest of the evening, was with him when he drove back to his rooms in his coupe with Bushby, and was with him as he flung himself to bed and went to sleep with a deep sigh of relief for that it was now over and done with forever. But it left him during the night and he awoke the next morning to a realisation of what he had done and of all he had lost. He began by remembering Victoria as he had first known her, by recalling only what was good in her, and by palliating all that was bad. From this starting point he went on till he was in an agony of grief and remorse and ended by lashing himself into the belief that Victoria had been his inspiration and had given zest and interest to every thing he had done. Now he bitterly regretted that he had thrown her over. He had never in his life before loved her so much. He was unfitted for work during all that day and passed the next night in unavailing lamentations. His morning’s mail brought him face to face with the crisis of his life. It came in the shape of a letter from Victoria Boyden. It was a very thick and a very heavy letter and she must have spent most of the previous day in writing it. He was surprised that she should have written him at all after what had passed on that other evening, but he was deeply happy as well because he knew precisely what the letter would be, before he opened it. It would be a petition for his forgiveness and a last attempt to win him back to her again.