She put her hands before her face, feeling dazed and sick, and when she drew them away, her face was very white. Like every pure woman, her thoughts of late had been absorbed by the sweet vanities of the morrow's ceremony, with just a warm, tremulous sub-consciousness of the beyond. The sudden fall about her ears of this structure of vanities bewildered her. Her brain seemed to be an avalanche of telegrams and letters. Faces of bidden guests swam lurid before her. Roderick, a long way off, faded into infinite mist. A pang of disappointment, humiliation, she knew not what, ached in her breast. She scarcely heard or heeded what the man was saying. He stopped, seeing her so white, and looked at her, breathless. Then suddenly a cloud seemed to roll away before her, and she was conscious of him standing there with haggard eyes and features drawn in pain. Scorn of her first imaginings drove them into the limbo of all vain things; the thrill of a proud courage nerved her; she drew herself up and faced realities. And the first reality was a rush through her being of yearning pity for the man so stricken. With an impulse of consolation she went up to him, and again his arms closed swiftly round her. He murmured burning incoherences. He could not live without her love, the crown and joy of earthly things. Life would be a purgatorial flame. He loved her. He worshipped her, so brave, so loyal, so adorable. His voice was vibrant with elemental passion. A woman, young and ardent, with rich blood running through her veins, is, above all things, a primitive human being. It were an ill day for the pride and vigour of the race if she were not. There are moments when the world's music surges like the roar of the sea in her ears, and the heart within her is lifted to her lips; when her limbs are as water, and her body is carried in the unfaltering arms of a god through illimitable space. She has yielded, is swept away by the man's passion, deliriously lost. As in a dream, standing there in his embrace, she heard him whisper:-- “There is one way--to scoff at destiny--to rise triumphant above it--to be married tomorrow in spite of all things. Not here. In Holland where I am summoned--I have the license--we can explain the urgency of our flight--the English Consul or Chaplain at Amsterdam will marry us. Come with me tonight--Ella--for God's sake, Ella, say that you will.” She smiled up at him without replying. The mad proposal seemed at the dreamy moment the sweetest of sanities. He continued in hurried intensity,-- “All will be so easy. You can say you are going to Ayresford--what more natural?--to stay here would be pain--there is a train for Ayresford about the time--half-past eight at Liverpool Street. I will meet you there with a ticket,--and then we shall be carried off to happiness--you and I--alone together--to conquer the world.... There--it must be.”