He took his leave early, pleading professional duties. Ella gave him a defiant hand and her lips had a contemptuous curl as she bade him good-night. Roderick, taking upon himself the part of man of the house, accompanied him downstairs and pressed whisky and soda upon him amid fervid expressions of regard. The discreet man-servant helped him on with his overcoat, and the welcome cold air of the street was upon him. There was a touch, of early frost and the stars shone clear. The memory of his unaccountable seizure half an hour ago brought back the memory of a night in Ayresford when he had read, as his heart prompted, the message of the stars. He hailed a passing cab, entered it with the air of a man who has the business of life to consider and not the dreams of a dead past. But in spite of himself the dreams came back, ugly and chilling, and he spent the drive home in brooding thought. What did Roderick's caresses matter to him? Did he not despise Ella utterly? For aught he cared they might marry into eternal misery to-morrow. It was only for his father's sake that he wished to part them. Roderick was a plausible knave, Ella a woman, feline, treacherous, delicate of face and gross of soul. They were well paired. He laughed cynically as he settled down to his evening's work in his laboratory. Here at least were things which he could understand. The growth of a bacillus in a bed of jelly was comprehensible. He could see it, test it. But who could see the growth of a lie in the heart of a human being? And the man himself was unconscious that a dead love had awakened that evening from its sleep and had passionately, for one brief instant, raised the stone that covered the mouth of its tomb. CHAPTER XII--THE CAUSE WANES Roderick drove away from Lady Milmo's in a far more comfortable frame of mind than Sylvester. The evening had been a success. Hitherto, in spite of his conviction that his hold upon Ella was secure, he had been puzzled as to the nature of her feelings towards him. Over the life-work they were to carry out in common she had always glowed; in their purely personal relations she had exhibited a sad lack of emotionality. His vanity had often been piqued by her regarding him less as a man than as the incarnation of an idea. At the same time his own feelings had been simulated to love. He honestly desired her beauty, youth, and wit. As a proof thereof, he had abandoned with entire distaste the latest of the many minor affairs of the heart in which his emotional life had been spent. A breath of something sweeter, purer, nobler, had stirred his soul. The train of courtesans shrank back affrighted, and he walked serene with the higher woman. But desiring her thus uniquely, the man in him craved response. Until to-night she had given none. To-night, however, the statue had grown warm woman. She had avowed her pride in him, had yielded adorably to his caress; before they parted she had given him her lips.