“Afraid? Of my life--you mean that? That you will be as common as that? No: you will do as I tell you.” He fixed his eyes on hers, and held them. She sat, looking. Presently she tried to take her eyes away. She could not. She shuddered and shrank. He withdrew his eyes for a moment. “You will go?” he asked. “It makes no difference,” she answered; then added sharply: “Who are you, to look at me like that, to--!” She paused. “I am your friend and your master!” He rose. “Good-night,” he said, at the door, and went out. He heard the key turn in the lock. He had forgotten his papers and letters. It did not matter. He would read them when she was gone--if she did go. He was far from sure that he had succeeded. He went to bed in another room, and was soon asleep. He was waked in the very early morning by feeling a face against his, wet, trembling. “What is it, Andree?” he asked. Her arms ran round his neck. “Oh, mon amour! Mon adore! Je t’aime! Je t’aime!” In the evening of this day she said she knew not how it was, but on that first evening in Audierne there suddenly came to her a strange terrible feeling, which seemed to dry up all the springs of her desire for him. She could not help it. She had fought against it, but it was no use; yet she knew that she could not leave him. After he had told her to go, she had had a bitter struggle: now tears, now anger, and a wish to hate. At last she fell asleep. When she awoke she had changed, she was her old self, as in Paris, when she had first confessed her love. She felt that she must die if she did not go to him. All the first passion returned, the passion that began on the common at Ridley Court. “And now--now,” she said, “I know that I cannot live without you.” It seemed so. Her nature was emptying itself. Gaston had got the merchandise for which he had given a price yet to be known. “You asked me of the other man,” she said. “I will tell you.” “Not now,” he said. “You loved him?” “No--ah God, no!” she answered. An hour after, when she was in her room, he opened the little bundle of correspondence.--A memorandum with money from his bankers. A letter from Delia, and also one from Mrs. Gasgoyne, saying that they expected to meet him at Gibraltar on a certain day, and asking why he had not written; Delia with sorrowful reserve, Mrs. Gasgoyne with impatience. His letters had missed them--he had written on leaving Paris, saying that his plans were indefinite, but he would write them definitely soon. After he came to Audierne it seemed impossible to write. How could he? No, let the American journalist do it. Better so. Better himself in the worst light, with the full penalty, than his own confession--in itself an insult. So it had gone on. He slowly tore up the letters. The next were from his grandfather and grandmother--they did not know yet. He could not read them. A few loving sentences, and then he said: