"Your partner is looking for you," he said. "You have overstayed the interval." Prudence placed her hand on his sleeve, and, with her face averted from Steele, walked silently out of the room. CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE. The Edward Morgans left the dance early, at whose suggestion Prudence never remembered. She was quite willing to go home. The misery of meeting again Philip Steele after the lapse of years, of discovering that she loved him--that he loved her, had remained true to her memory always, was more than she could bear. The image of Steele filled her mind and so dominated her thoughts that she could not fix her attention on anything else. She did not see him again. He left quietly soon after Edward Morgan led his wife away--disappearing as he had come, unobtrusively, without meeting his hostess, feeling unequal to facing her, and fearful of risking a further encounter with the girl whose memory he had cherished faithfully since the night he had stood under her window and caught a rose which she dropped down to him for a token at parting. The rose was in his possession still, and it was no more faded with the years, he reflected with bitterness, than his memory was in her fickle affections. He felt angry with her, and in his anger he judged her harshly. He had thought of her so much, had imagined her pleasure at their meeting, had taken for granted that she would wait for him, confident of his return and of his love. And he came back to find her married--gone from her old place at the window, the setting in which he had pictured her during those five lonely years of work. He had sworn to take her back with him, sworn to have her in defiance of every law. He recalled the boast with a smile of grim irony. There was a suggestion of melodrama about it which struck him now as absurd. What, he wondered, had she thought of the boast--of him? She had remained so still and silent, with her half-averted face and an air of drooping sadness in her quiet pose. She loved him. In spite of his bitter resentment at her marriage, at her want of faith, deep down in his inner consciousness there remained the calm assurance that her heart was his, would remain his, no matter what the years brought forth. The Morgans exchanged scarcely a word during the drive home. But when they reached the house Mr Morgan followed his wife into the drawing-room with the air of a man who intends having things out. It was not the time for explanations. He would have displayed greater wisdom had he deferred the discussion to a more fitting occasion. Prudence's nerves were all jarred. She had reached a stage of misery which rendered her desperate, and her husband's manner, conveying his sense of outraged pride and conscious authority, provoked her to a show of bitterness, which in calmer moments she deplored.