In the shock and excitement of battle a man can bear the amputation of a mangled limb without great suffering. It is afterwards that the agony sets in, when the nerves have quieted to responsiveness. So it was with Joyce on that sleepless night of his great renunciation, and with his misery was mingled despair lest all should prove to be futile, his theory of renunciation; a ghastly fallacy. Time was when he would have mocked at the proposition. Could he even now defend it upon rational grounds? Had he not cut off his leg to compensate for the loss of an arm, thereby adding to the gaiety of the high gods? He tossed about in the bed in anguish, “burning out his hell.” A man of sensitive, emotional temperament, however, cannot pass through such an ordeal unchanged. Some fibres must be shrivelled up, whilst others are toughened. Joyce rose in the morning with aching head and exhausted nerves, but still with a dull sense of calm. Fallacy or not, at any rate he had chosen the man’s part. The consciousness of it was an element of strength. He dressed and went downstairs. Yvonne was already in the room, neat and dainty as usual, making the toast for breakfast. She was pale and had the faint rings below the eyes that ever tell tales on a woman’s face. She looked round at him anxiously, as she knelt before the fire. He saw her trouble and went and sat in the armchair beside her and spread out his hands to warm them. “You have been worrying, my poor little Yvonne,” he said gently. “I was a selfish beast to let you think I wanted to make up my mind, when my course was so plain. I wrote to Everard last night. I told him to cherish the treasure that he has got. You shouldn’t have worried over it.” Yvonne turned away her face from him, and remained silent for some moments, half kneeling, half sitting, the toasting-fork drooping idly from her hand. “It was foolish of me,” she replied at last “But it seemed hard to leave you alone--and I ’ve got so used to this little place--one gets attached to places, like a cat--Did you--were you sorry to give me away?” “Of course,” said Joyce. “I thought we could go on being brother and sister till the end of all things. Well, all things have an end, and this is it.” “You would not prefer me to stay?” asked Yvonne, in her soft voice. He would have given his soul to have been able to throw his arms round her, passionately and wildly--she was so near him, so maddeningly desired. Did she realise, he wondered, what flame was in her words? He leaned back in the chair, as if to avert the temptation by increasing the distance between them. “No,” he said, with a sharp breath, “I could not--it will be a wrench breaking up the--partnership. But it is all for the best. I know you will be happy and cared for, and that will be a happiness to me.”