But neither heeded him. Baltazar made a stride forward and with one hand gripped Marcelle by the arm and with the other motioned in his imperious way to the open door. Still looking at him in wonderment, she allowed him to lead her quickly to the terrace at the head of the steps. Godfrey’s astonished gaze followed them till they disappeared. Outside, Baltazar released her. “Marcelle! What in thunder are you doing here?” She was too greatly overwhelmed to reply. She could only gasp a few broken and foolish words. “You? John Baltazar? Alive?” “Never been less dead. But you! You of all people. My God! although I lost you, I could never lose your face. It has been with me all the time. And there it is, the same as ever. But what are you doing here?” She made a vague gesture over her costume. “I’m a professional nurse. Sister-in-charge. I’ve been nursing all my life.” “Not when I knew you,” said Baltazar. “My life began after that.” “Married?” The colour came back into her white cheeks. “No,” she said. “Neither am I.” He put both hands on her shrinking shoulders and bent on her eyes which she could not meet. “You at last, after all these years! Just the same. Just as beautiful. Much more.” “This is rather public,” she managed to say, releasing herself. “There are lots of patients——” He laughed and, indicating the parapet, invited her to sit. “You must forgive me,” he said, seating himself by her side. “The sight of you blotted out the world. Don’t be frightened. I’m quite tame now. Look at me.” She obeyed him as she had done in her early girlhood, dominated for the moment by his tone. “How do you think I’m looking? Battered by time? A crock to be wrapped up in flannel and set in the chimney-corner to wheeze the rest of his life away?” “You look very little older,” she said with a wan smile. “And you haven’t a grey hair in your head.” “That’s good. I’m as young as ever I was. I can sweep away twenty years and begin where I left off.” “You’re more fortunate than I am,” said Marcelle. “Rubbish!” said Baltazar. She glanced at him wistfully and then out over the trees. “Nursing isn’t the road to perpetual youth,” she said. Then lest he should catch up her words, she continued swiftly: “But you must tell me where you have been, how you’ve come back to life. You disappeared utterly. You never wrote. If we all thought you dead, was it our fault? When Godfrey showed me your letter, I never dreamed who James Burden might be.” “Godfrey?” Baltazar pounced on the name. “Do you call him Godfrey? Then you must be old friends. Hence the miracle of finding you together. Have you been mothering him all his life?” She shook her head. “How you jump at conclusions! No. I met him for the first time when I came here—a month ago.” “So it’s just Chance, Fate, Destiny, the three of us meeting like this? The hand of God? . . . Wait, though. I can’t see quite clearly. You learned he was my son?” She smiled again: