Her uneasiness increases. She can settle to nothing. A feverish colour burns in her cheeks, her eyes are brilliant. Every step in the street, every ring at the bell, startles and unnerves her. Again and again she wishes she had not promised to see Keith. Again and again does she find herself hoping, praying he may not come after all. Twelve strikes. She is sitting in the "cameo" room--her own special favourite--her eyes watch the hands of the clock with an absorbed fascination. One minute past, two, three, four, five. He will not come. Ten minutes past. Now she is quite sure he will not. Is she relieved, or sorry? Eleven minutes past. He is here. "I am sorry to be late. I was detained," he says, greeting her nervously. "I should have liked to keep up my old character for punctuality." She gives him her hand. Now that he _has_ come she feels calm and composed once more, and all her gentle dignity of manner returns. "And what is the momentous business on which I am to give my opinion?" she asks, as he takes the low seat opposite her own and looks steadily at her. For an instant he is silent. Then he shakes back the soft hair from his brow with the impatient gesture that she well remembers. "It is only--this," he says. "If I go through with this marriage it will drive me mad!" Startled, surprised out of all her self-control, Lauraine looks at him in dread and horror. "Why do you come to me and tell me this?" she says piteously. "Of what use is it?" "None, I suppose. I only wanted to say I took your advice; that with might and main I set myself to work to care for Nan. I might as well have saved myself the trouble. There are times when a devil within me rises and tempts me to kill her: when I hate myself for deceiving her, and her for being deceived; when---- But why pain your ears with such folly? This thing is too hard for me. I cannot do it, Lorry--I _cannot_." "Oh, Keith!" It is such a sorrowful little cry. It is just as when in their childish days some deed or freak of his had grieved his little playmate's gentle heart. It thrills through him with a pain that is intolerable. "For God's sake, don't speak like that--don't pity me!" he cries wildly. "It is more than I can bear. Oh, Lorry, don't think I have come here to-day to distress you with the old sorrow. It is not that, indeed. I only wanted to say that I have brought double dishonour on my head by trying to do what you seemed to think would cure me; to ask you if you would have me go through with this horrible farce--for, as there is a Heaven above us, I would sooner die the worst death you could name, than speak such a lie in face of God and man as I should speak did I promise to be a husband to--Nan." His voice is low and husky, and the words come out with fierce, unstudied eloquence. Lauraine's heart aches as she listens, as she looks. She is utterly at a loss what to say.