She faced it boldly, even though he felt her hand tremble in his--'Did I ever deny it?' she said softly, with tears in her voice; 'I do not, I _cannot_ forget quite. It is pitiful, of course; but why----?' 'Don't!' he interrupted quickly. 'Don't, my dear lady! You will only make me remember more; that is the truth. As you say, it is pitiful; but there it is.' She stood looking at him with a world of regret, some anger, and a little, a very little scorn. 'And you will let this interfere with--with everything.' 'Not with everything, but with this, certainly,' he pointed to the letter which he had laid on the console below the poinsettias. 'And that is all the easier to do, because I don't believe in it--quite. But if I were you, I should tell Sir George the truth and let him decide. As for the other matter about which I came to speak, he may be right, and I wrong. Time will show.' 'It may, disastrously, to many--to India--even to Empire!'--the scorn came uppermost now. 'Surely,' he replied, reverting to his usual manner, 'the Empire can take care of itself. If not, Lady Arbuthnot, I am afraid it must do without my help--in Nushapore. Good-bye.' The qualification held all his previous arguments in it, and re-aroused his own bitterness at his own memories, so that as he walked on down the long vista of rooms, he felt each well-remembered bit of it to be a fresh injury; and his impatience, his obstinacy grew at each step. Why had not Grace the sense to believe, once for all, as he had told her at the very first, that hers was not the hand to wile his back to the plough? Her hand! Ye Gods! And he could feel its touch now on his. That woman's touch so full of possibilities, so full of power. 'Mr. Waymond! Oh, Mr. Waymond! Do please don't go away!' came Jerry's voice from a side-room used as a schoolroom which opened out from the hall. 'Oh, please do come and help me wif this. I'm 'fwaid I don't know somefing I ought to know.' It never needed much of Jerry's voice to cajole any one; so the next moment, temper or no temper, Jack Raymond was bending over the little figure which, perched on a high chair at the table, was busy over a map of India. 'Hullo, young man!' he said. 'Lessons?'