Fools would think this resolution unfeminine, unmaidenly. Let fools think as they pleased. What did she care for what fools thought? She cared for George more than for all the world, sages and fools, besides. If it were good for him, she would give him up. If it were good for him, she would cleave to him all her life. What were fools or sages to her? Not the tiniest flake of the ashes falling there into an ashpan of the grate compared to George. He was the sun in her system, and nothing on earth existed in light that did not proceed from him. But, after all, was she not trying to make up her mind on a point which had not yet arisen? He had not asked her to give him up her ring. He had not told her he wished their engagement at an end. He loved her, and she loved him, and they had had no quarrel, and there was no sensible reason for their parting, and they should not part. No; if all Europe tried to tear her away from his side, she would not go until he bade her go. And if she thought he was going to send her away she would go down on her knees and cling to him, and ask him to kill her there and then rather than send her from him. 'Oh, love, I bless you! All the pains I suffer by love now I would not change for all the happiness of my former life. It is dearer to suffer through love than to be joyous without it; for to suffer through love is to share a lover's pain, and that is the highest of earthly pleasure save to rejoice in a lover's joy.' She determined to try and clear up the situation no further, but to let matters take their course. She told herself she felt no doubt whatever of the issue; George would become himself again, and he and she would be just as though no cloud had ever darkened the sky above them. She rose, and busied herself about the room, partly in packing, and partly in turning over a dozen times things she had no need to take with her. Early in the afternoon of the next day, the whole party left London for Stratford-on-Avon. Fortunately they had a compartment to themselves. At first George hoped and prayed some stranger might get in; but Nevill did all he could to prevent this. He insisted upon their making the carriage present a crowded appearance. He made Kate sit at one of the windows looking on the platform, and Marie on the other. He littered the seats with handbags, umbrellas, newspapers, rugs, and every other kind of light baggage that accompanies the person. He stood up himself, and made George stand up too, so as to prevent anyone on the platform seeing into the remoter half of the compartment; and when anyone looking like a traveller approached, he glanced over his shoulder, and shook his head regretfully at the traveller.