“Still, I shall feel rather a beast.” “You mustn’t do anything so silly.” She got up and came and stood near him, leaning her face against his arm. “If you will write to me often, dearie, I shall be all right. If you worry I shall be miserable. Try to understand that you have done nothing to make me unhappy. A little while ago I had a dream of how I longed to go away with a little one of my own, to some quiet spot far removed from all I have ever known. If I am to realise my dream, how should I not be happy? It is what I asked life to give me.” But his eyes lost none of their gravity. It was evident, in the midst of his dawning success, some cloud had descended upon his horizon, and shrouded much of the sunlight. Lorraine’s sensitive temperament read it quickly, and she decided, for his sake, to hasten her departure. She thought her continued presence in London under the circumstances was a continual anxiety to him, and that he would only breathe freely when she was safe in Brittany. She did not know—how should she—that after that week’s madness on the southern coast there had come rather a terrible revelation to the man whom fortune seemed to be smothering with favours. It had not come all at once. It had been there, or at any rate the gist of it, for some time. But when it was present in full force, it had the power to make all the adulation, triumph, and hopefulness of his career seem but a small thing and of little account, because of one great desire beyond his reach. It came definitely into being during those many evenings Hal spent at the Cromwell Road flat, when Dudley was away in Holloway with his friend. It reached a climax of realisation when she openly wore the watch and chain Sir Edwin had sent to her. The night he asked her not to wear it, and she tautingly refused, saw him, with all his success and favours, one of the most perplexed and unhappy men in London. It was just the waywardness of the little god Love. The fair débutantes with money and influence had left him untouched. No older woman but Lorraine had disturbed his peace, or appealed to his deepest affections. It was left to Hal, the mocker, the outspoken, the impatient of giant inches and splendid head, to awaken his heart to all its richness of strong, enduring love. And what did it mean to her? The sunshine and the joy might go out of all he was winning and achieving, if it might not be won and achieved for her—but what did she care—what was she ever likely to care?