“Unfortunately,” she answered, with a trembling voice, “I can’t--and I won’t--at present. Unless Lord Clanfield wishes it.” “My wishes have nothing to do with it,” said Lord Clanfield coldly. Then she understood that the decision lay with her still. “I won’t give it up,” she said quietly, “and I won’t let you, Gerard, have anything to do with it. You are ill; you need care, more care than I could give you. And I am strong and eager to make money. Will you, Lord Clanfield, take care of him, so that I can go quietly on with my work without any one’s knowing who I am, or what my name is?” Lord Clanfield, although this was the very decision at which he had wished her to arrive, was taken aback when it was reached. “Do--do you mean it? Will you consent to leave him with me?” he said incredulously. “And am I to have nothing to say in the matter?” asked Gerard, with not unnatural irritation. Audrey, having made up her mind what she ought to do, turned to him with a laugh which indeed was forced, but which she carried through cleverly and well. “Nothing whatever,” she said. “At present, at any rate. Stay here where you are well cared for, and rest assured I am well off too, working hard, and making money. Oh, lots of money! And don’t look so worried. You ought to be as happy in knowing that I am well, as I am in knowing that you are free and--and in good hands. Good-bye, my dear, dear boy. Thank God for letting me see you, know that----” A catch in her voice stopped her, and she threw her arms round him and pressed her lips to his, while Lord Clanfield, stiff, upright, and unbending, stood at the window with his back towards them. Gerard stared into her face with haggard, disappointed eyes. “Do you mean you’re going? That I’m to lose you already? What does it mean, Audrey, what does it mean?” “It means,” answered she readily, “that we’re doing the best for us both. For us both.” “When will you come again?” “I’ll--I’ll let you know.” She tore herself away from him and fled through the window with one swift glance at Lord Clanfield, and the whispered words:-- “I’ve done my part. Do yours!” CHAPTER XIII More dead than alive, Audrey, when she had left Lord Clanfield’s house, hurried through the flower-garden, where she passed Geoffrey, indignant at her having given him the slip but not ready with a coherent protest, and came to a sudden standstill under the spreading branches of an old beech-tree, against the trunk of which she leaned for support. Panting and breathless, too deeply agitated for connected thought, she cast longing eyes back at the old red-brick house, and felt the first pang of the parting with her husband. She had left him so abruptly, not daring to stay, not daring to speak clearly to him, that she asked herself, in dismay, whether the bewilderment in which he must be would not more than counterbalance the joy he had felt in seeing her again.