"You don't believe in the dear Redeemer, do you?" "Of course not--but it's poetry." They had neither of them realised that the interview was near an end, but these last words seemed to have finished it somehow. They were both standing, and the silence remained unbroken. Then suddenly Janey moved. An absolutely new impulse had seized her. She went over to the glass, and looked at herself in it. Then she smoothed her hair, arranged her gown, made it tidy at the waist, and buttoned it at the wrists. Quentin watched her in blank wonder--he had never before seen her pay the slightest heed to her appearance. But to-day she stood a full five minutes before the glass, patting, smoothing, arranging--settling every fold of her careless garments with minutest care. Then she turned to him. "Good-bye, Quentin." Her head was held high--one would scarcely know her in her sleekness and order. "Janey--you forgive me." She did not speak. "Janey--for God's sake!--oh, please forgive me!--because I've suffered so much, because I've wanted you so, because I've struggled to find redemption...." His eyes burned, full of entreaty. But at first she could not answer him. She moved slowly towards the door, but stopped on the threshold, and looked back at him, her heart hot and sick in her breast with pity. She had never realised Quentin's youth so absolutely and heartrendingly as to-day. "I forgive you," she said, "but not for any of those reasons. I forgive you because you are--oh, God!--only a boy." CHAPTER IV FLAMES Janet walked quickly through the darkening country. A power from behind seemed to be driving her on--a hot, smoky power of uttermost shame. It was symbolised by the thunder-vapour that curled in the east, a black, swagging cloud that lumbered towards the sunset over reaches of heat-washed sky. She hardly realised how she had won through that interview at Redpale Farm. The details were dim and jumbled in her memory, like the details of what has taken place just before an accident or during an illness. She hoped she had not been undignified, but really did not care very much about it. The tension which had characterised both her calmness and her hysteria was gone--her emotions seemed to flop. Unlike so many women, pride gave her no support in her dreadful hour.