It was certainly destined to be followed by far-reaching consequences as regards two, at least, of the other people in the neighbourhood. Robin's notice to give up his post as Eliot's agent had, of course, been suitably buried, a brief understanding handshake between the two men its only tombstone, and Robin had gone straight from his interview with Eliot to the Priory. He found Cara, surrounded by a small army of vases, arranging flowers, of which a great sheaf, freshly sent in by the gardener from the hot-houses, lay on the table. "Aren't they lovely?" she said, when she and Robin had exchanged greetings. "Do you want a buttonhole?" He looked at the deep-red carnation which she held out to him and shook his head. "No, thank you," he said politely. "I want a wife." Cara gasped a little. "Robin!" she exclaimed faintly. A lovely colour flooded her face. It had been a much happier face latterly--since Ann's engagement. The look of settled sadness had gone out of her eyes. She felt now--now that everything was made straight betwixt Ann and Eliot--as though the heavy burden she had carried all these years had been suddenly loosed from her shoulders. Eliot had found happiness, at last, and that terrible sense of responsibility for his maimed and broken life was taken from her. Of the existence of the grey shadow she could not know, or guess. So she turned to Robin with a sweet hesitancy that brought him swiftly to her side. "Cara!" he said eagerly. "Cara, are you going to give me that 'second-best,' after all?" Still she hesitated. "It doesn't seem fair, Robin," she faltered. "I'm older than you are, for one thing." "One year--or two, is it?" he mocked joyfully. "Half a century, I think!"--with a quick sigh. "You'll grow younger," he suggested optimistically. "And anyway, can you bear to think of me living all alone at the Cottage after Ann is married? I should probably commit suicide." Cara stood twisting a spray of maidenhair fern round and round her fingers till the tiny pale green leaves shrivelled up and dropped off and only the wiry stem remained. "When is--Ann going to be married?" she asked slowly, at last. "In April. It's all fixed. But the thing that matters is when are _we_ going to be married?" April! Eliot was to be married in April! Cara was conscious of a muffled stab of pain. But she felt no active rebellion. With a wistful sense of resignation she recognised that his life and hers were separate and apart. She herself had sundered them more than ten years ago. But now, at last, Eliot had won through to happiness! She thanked God for that. And there was still something she could give Robin in return for his eager worship--good comradeship, and that second love which, though it bears but a faint semblance to the rushing ecstasy of young, passionate, first love, yet holds, perhaps, a deeper, more selfless tenderness and understanding. She turned to the man waiting so eagerly for her answer.