When Hilda went up to bed she thought Louise already asleep, for she lay there with her eyes closed. Hilda undressed as stealthily as possible, and crept in beside her sister. At first she felt so excited that it seemed to her she must surely lie awake all night. But as a matter of fact, her eyes drooped at once, and in five minutes she was asleep.

Then it was that Louise stirred and opened her eyes. They were very wide and very full of perplexity. She had not been sleeping, but had feigned sleep because she dreaded the ordeal of talking. She wanted to be alone, and she wanted to think—all night. A feverish zeal was upon her.

Barry was abed too. His light had gone out and his room was quite silent. Was he asleep? She wondered. Or was he, too, lying there in the dark with eyes wide open, thinking?

The walk back from the roast had been a very silent one. The day had been crowded with emotion, and during the journey back to Beachcrest the tenseness had seemed, curiously, to be eased a little. At least there seemed a tacit understanding that, whatever the further developments might be, tomorrow must do. Tomorrow, tomorrow! Tonight[Pg 276] all was hazed and half drowned in unshed, groping tears. Even emotion itself, through sheer, blessed weariness, was subtly obscured. So the walk had been silent, while somehow both had felt as though the air had cleared a little. It was easier to breathe.

They had stood together a moment on the porch.

"Goodnight," she said huskily.

"Goodnight, Louise," he returned gravely, giving her hand just a frank, brief pressure.

She wanted to throw herself at his feet. The impulse to do something splendid and expiating swept over her almost irresistibly. She wanted to implore his forgiveness—would that set their lives in order? If this were to be the end, she felt there ought to be something at least vaguely stupendous about it.

"Louise, dear—what is it?" he asked, quite tenderly and calmly, yet with an intensity, too, which seemed like a hot, reproachful breath against one's very soul.

She swayed a little, almost as though she might be about to fall in a faint. He touched her arm gently.

The opportunity passed. "It's nothing," she murmured. "I'm tired, that's all—so tired!" And she did not throw herself at his feet, or do anything splendid at all.

It was true, she was very tired. She expected to drop at once into a merciful drugged sleep. It had been like that after the affair with Richard. But now, lo! she found herself more wide awake, it seemed, than she had ever been. The weariness seemed all[Pg 277] slipping from her, and her mind grew quite vibrant, as with a slowly dawning purpose.

Ah, tomorrow!

Would the situation be as tragic then? Could it be otherwise than tragic? But perhaps—perhaps they would see things more clearly....

"Yes," she thought, "I'll go to sleep now and let tomorrow bring what it must."

Mañana, mañana!

But this was not to be. She closed her eyes. She tried to turn into a snug and sleepy position. But she could not woo sleep; and every effort merely sharpened her senses. Again she found herself lying in the dark with wide eyes, and went on thinking, thinking.

What was the meaning of this strange commotion? Phantoms—of the past—presaging phantoms endlessly to follow.... At dawn she had gone out blithely enough to welcome her lover. He had come. And then.... But even before his coming, that curious battle had set in. Not his hat or the twist of his profile.... Phantoms. Phantoms rising up in her heart like some sinister cloud of retribution. And their single adversary: "You are mine, all mine...."

Now, in this sombre hour shunned by sleep, the conflict achieved an effect of climax: she felt it to be that, obscurely yet with a desperate poignancy—felt that an issue precious in the scheme of her unfolding destiny faced decision. Legions of spent loves went[Pg 278] by in marshalled battle trim. With an inward cry she watched them as they passed. Perfume still lingering in the house, though with the guest departed. Ghosts of a many-vizaged passion, homing at length, for the fulfilment of a barter Faust-like in its essence.

How lavish she had always been: how free! Shambles, now the glamour was gone stale. A monstrous cheapening—a heart flung out to-let in a public street. Yes, how easily and extravagantly she had spent herself—a profligate spending, for what the moment could return. Here, at last, was a love that demanded: "You must be mine, all mine—you must belong to me forever!" Curious, that of them all—of all the voices that had spoken of love before—it should be Lynndal's which, in fancy, thus first framed a so momentous contract!

He had been always so modest; in the beginning, to be loved in return had figured for him as a too, too generous conjecture. Gradually, however, there had been a return. Their lives had drawn together. The fact that this love had, from almost the very beginning, been challenged to the bridging of such distance began to assume for Louise a new and arresting significance. There had been something............