The whirr of a motor-car grew loud and ceased. Harry had returned from Ludsey. Mr. Benoliel sat patiently in front of her, awaiting her decision. Was he to break his news to Harry Rames or was he not? Cynthia felt that Harry's destiny and hers were in her hands. She must make her choice and by that choice it seemed to her they would be both inextricably bound, their happiness or their misery allotted to them for the whole span of their lives. She sat with her chin propped in the palm of her hand and her eyes brooding darkly on Mr. Benoliel. A door was shut somewhere in the house. She rose and pressed the bell. "Howard," she said to her butler, "was that Mr. Rames?" "Yes ma'am." "He is in his study I think?" "Yes." "Will you show Mr. Benoliel in to him?" And as Benoliel rose, she said to him, "Will you come back after you have told your news? You will have an opportunity of reconsidering your judgment. I should like to hear whether you still think him disheartened." Cynthia was in her most aggrieved and stately mood. She usually was when she knew herself to be in the wrong. She would not admit Mr. Benoliel's sympathy or affection for her. She had an epithet for him very near to the tip of her tongue at this moment. Mr. Benoliel was officious. With a distant bow she dismissed him. She had the satisfaction half an hour later of hearing Mr. Benoliel's complete recantation. "I was quite wrong, Cynthia. He was in the best of spirits. He was elated. The look of strain had gone if it was ever there. I have been mistaken. I am happy to admit it." Cynthia relaxed from her frigidity. But her satisfaction was a poor one and had little life in it. She had merely tricked Mr. Benoliel into the belief that his insight had been at fault. For in truth, as she knew very well, it had never been more shrewd. What had led Mr. Benoliel into error was his ignorance of the letter with the "Rexland" stamp which had arrived at the white house by the morning's post. Hemming's failure was a kind of reprieve for Harry Rames. In a sudden revulsion he had been lifted out of his discouragement. His exultation had remained with him all that day. Cynthia had counted upon it when she had sent Benoliel to his study. CHAPTER XXXIV THE CONVICT AT THE OAR A long account of Hemming's expedition, sent by a New Zealand correspondent, appeared in one of the morning papers the next day. Hemming had travelled a couple of hundred miles further south than Harry Rames. Then he had been compelled to return. But it was Harry Rames who had made it possible for him to get so far. For he used Rames's depots of provisions and was able to save his own for the stretch of new ice-covered country.