There's just one thing more I want to say. I don't want either you or Marjory to think I'm going out of your lives a martyr--that I'm going off to pine and die. The first time she left me I made an ass of myself, and that was because I had not then got hold of the essential fact of love. As I see it now, love--real love--does not lie in the personal gratification of selfish desires. The wanting is only the first stage. Perhaps it is a ruse of Nature to entice men to the second stage, which is giving. Until recently my whole thought was centered on getting. I was thinking of myself alone. It was baffled desire and injured vanity that led me to do what I did before, and I was justly punished. It was when I began to think less about myself and more about her that I was reprieved. I'm leaving her now with but one desire: to do for her whatever I may, at any time and in any place, to make her happy; and, because of her, to do the same for any others with whom for the rest of my life I may be thrown in contact. Thus I may be of some use and find peace. I'm going away, Covington. That will leave her here alone. Wherever you are, there must be trains back to Nice--starting perhaps within the hour. So long. PETER J. NOYES. CHAPTER XXVI FREEDOM With the departure of Peter and his sister--Peter had made his leave-taking easy by securing an earlier train than she had expected and sending her a brief note of farewell--Marjory found herself near that ideal state of perfect freedom she had craved. There was now no outside influence to check her movements. If she remained where she was, there was no one to interrupt her in the solitary pursuit of her own pleasure. Safe from any possibility of intrusion, she was at liberty to remain in the seclusion of her room; but, if she preferred, she could walk the quay without the slightest prospect in the world of being forced to recognize the friendly greeting of any one. Peter was gone; Beatrice was gone; and Monte was gone. There was no one else--unless by some chance poor Teddy Hamilton should turn up, which was so unlikely that she did not even consider it. Yet there were moments when, if she had met Teddy, she would have smiled a welcome. She would not have feared him. There was only one person in the world now of whom she stood in fear, and he was somewhere along the English coast, playing a poor game of golf. She was free beyond her most extravagant dreams--absolutely free. She was so free that it seemed aimless to rise in the morning, because there was nothing awaiting her attention. She was so free that there was no object in breakfasting, because there was no obligation demanding her strength. She was so free that whether she should go out or remain indoors depended merely upon the whim of the moment. There was for her nothing either without or within. For the first twenty-four hours she sat in a sort of stupor. Marie became anxious.