She was going to him, nearing him. Already she entered the straggling end of Fanstead. How would he receive her? If he cast her off, she would perish in self-contempt. She went on. An unsuspecting Mrs. Pettiland had told her, in answer to a question which she strove to keep casual, the whereabouts of the Quantock Garage. The sign above an open gateway broke suddenly on her vision. She entered a silent courtyard. A light was burning in a loft above a closed garage, and a wooden flight of steps ran up to it. The door was open and on the threshold sat a man, his feet on the top stair, his head buried in his hands. She advanced, her heart in her mouth. The moon shone full on him. She uttered a little whispering cry: “Alexis!” He started to his feet, gazed at her for a breathless second and scrambled with grotesque speed down the rickety staircase and caught her in his arms. * * * * * She mounted the stairs to his loft, furnished with pallet bed and camp washing apparatus, a wooden chair, a table bearing unsightly remains of crust and cheese, and littered with books in corners and on the uncarpeted floor. All her remorse and pity and love gushed over him—over the misery of the life to which she had condemned him by her littleness of soul and her hardness of heart. She did not spare herself; but of this profanity he would hear nothing. She had come to him. She had forgiven him. The Celestial Hierarchy would be darkened by the presence of one so radiantly angelic. She clutched him tight to her. “Oh, my God, if you had been killed!” Exultant, he cried in his old way: “Nothing could kill me, for I was born for your love.” They talked through the night into the sweet-scented June dawn. They would face the world fearlessly together. First the Onslow and Wedderburn challenge to be taken up. She would stand by his side through all the obloquy. That was the newer meaning of her life. If they were outcasts what did it matter? They could not be other than splendidly outcast. He responded in his eager way to her enthusiasm. _Magna est veritas et prævalebit._ With never a shadow between them, what ecstasy would be existence. They crept downstairs like children into the summer morning. * * * * * But as they had planned so did it not turn out. Rowington gave news that Onslow and Wedderburn had dropped the question. Why revive dead controversy? But Triona and Olivia insisted. The letter on the origin of _Through Blood and Snow_, signed “John Briggs” appeared in _The Times_. A few references to it appeared in the next weekly Press. But that was all. No one was interested. _Through Blood and Snow_ was forgotten. The events of 1917 in Russia were ancient history. As well worry over fresh scandals concerning Catherine the Great. What did the reading world care what Alexis Triona’s real name was, or how he had obtained the material for his brilliant book?