London and a cold grey pall of fog! Frances looked forth from the carriage-window and suppressed a shiver. The grim ugliness of the great buildings that bordered the line seemed to lay a clammy hand upon her. The sordid poverty of the streets was as a knell sounding in her heart. Somehow it seemed to her that there was a greater loneliness here than could be found in any solitude of the moors. It was like a gaunt spectre, menacing her.

The autumn day was fading into twilight, and a dreary drizzle had begun to descend from the smoke-laden sky. She saw the gleam of it on the platforms as the train ran into the teeming terminus. And the spectre at her elbow drew closer. This was the land of exile.

She shook herself free, summoning to her aid that practical spirit which had stood her in such good stead in the old days of her slavery. Was she weaker now than she had been then, she asked herself? But she did not stay to answer the question, for something within her uttered swift warning. She knew that there were weak joints in her armour of which she had never been aware before.

In any case it was not the moment to examine them. The long journey was over, and she had reached her destination. The time for action had arrived. She had made her plans, and it now remained for her to carry them out. With the money that Rotherby had sent for her sketches, she had enough to provide for that night at a hotel, and in the morning she was determined to find a cheap lodging where she could remain pending the settlement of the business that had brought her thither. Beyond that, her plans were vague, but if the matter went favourably she hoped to leave London again immediately. To live somewhere in the country—anywhere in the country—where she could breathe pure air and work; this was all she asked of Fate now. The reek of the town nauseated her; it filled her with an intolerable sense of imprisonment. She had an almost unbearable longing to turn and go back whence she had come. And then suddenly a voice spoke at her side, greeting her, and she looked round with a start.

“Didn’t you expect me?” said Rotherby.

He smiled his welcome in the glare and noise of the great station, and two utterly antagonistic sensations possessed Frances at the sight of him, a feeling of dread and a feeling that was almost gladness. Little as she had desired to see him, the unexpected appearance of a familiar face in all that host of strangers sent a quick thrill of relief through her. The spectre that haunted her drew a little away.

She smiled back at him, and after a moment gave him her hand. “I never expected you. What made you come?”

He laughed with a hint of exultation. His hand-clasp was close and possessive. She drew her own away with a sudden, stabbing memory of that which had been denied her that morning.

“You said you were coming,” he said.

“Yes, but I never said the train.”

He laughed again. “There was no need. Come along! Any luggage? I’ve got a car waiting.”

“My things are all here,” she said. “But I am not going any further to-night. I am going to get a room at the station hotel. To-morrow I can find something cheaper.”

“Splendid!” he said lightly. “I’ll come and see you safely installed, may I?”

She could not refuse, but she made her acceptance of his escort as business-like as possible. Not for worlds would she have had him know that any company just then was preferable to that of the spectre of her desolation that stalked so close behind.

They went into the hotel, and she booked a room for the night, Rotherby standing by her side, amused, not, it seemed, greatly interested, until the business was accomplished.

Then, as she turned, he became at once alert and ready. She thought the cynical lines were more deeply marked than ever about his mouth and eyes, but his smile was wholly friendly.

“Look here!” he said. “You must dine with me and we’ll do a theatre to-night. You’re looking like the maiden all forlorn, though I’m relieved to see you’ve left the cow behind! I’ll be round about seven. Will that do?”

She hesitated. “Do you know I think I would rather have a quiet talk with you somewhere?” she said, with something of an effort. “I want to hear all there is to hear—about my work.”

“Oh, there’s plenty of time,” he said. “As a matter of fact, the dealer chap isn’t in town at the moment. I heard on the ’phone this morning. He’ll soon be back though, so you needn’t be anxious.”

The news chilled her. “I had hoped to see him to-morrow,” she said.

“He’ll soon be back,” said Rotherby again, with careless confidence. “Now what about this theatre? You’ll come? It’ll pass the time away.”

It was in her mind to refuse. She would have preferred to refuse. But in the end she accepted. Perhaps it was the dread of a long evening of solitary speculation and its attendant misgivings that actuated her. Perhaps his insistence weighed with her; or perhaps like a child she was overwhelmed by the sheer loneliness of her position. Whatever the motive, she yielded, and having yielded, she thrust all regrets away. It was as though after her long journey she had entered another world, and she determined almost fiercely to take the advice that had been offered her that morning and fling all handicaps aside. He had said it was no good. He had told her not to return. Then she would go forward on this new path and stifle the pain at her heart. It might be that in time she would forget. O God, if she could but forget!

She parted from Rotherby in the vestibule of the hotel and went up to her room. They were to meet again in little more than an hour, and she spent the time in a feverish effort to banish thought and to banish also that appearance of forlornness of which he had jestingly spoken.

She was very tired, but she would not own it, and when she met him again she had captured that reserve of strength which dwells at the back of jaded nerves, and an almost reckless charm was hers.

He gave her flowers, carnations and lilies, and she pinned them at her breast, revelling in their sweetness, exotic though she knew them to be. He took her to a restaurant, and the feeling of unreality followed her thither, throwing a strange glamour over all things. He did not again taunt her with being forlorn; for she held herself like a queen, and not even the simplicity of her attire could make her insignificant.

“Gad!” he said to her once. “How wonderful you are!”

And she uttered a little laugh that surprised herself. “It is all make-believe,” she said.

He did not ask her to explain, but his eyes followed her perpetually with a kindling flame which mounted steadily higher, and when they left the table his hand closed for a moment upon her arm.

She shook it off with a laugh and a shrug. “Every game has its rules,” she said.

He laughed also, answering her mood. “Every woman makes her own,” he said.

They went out into the gleaming streets and entered the waiting car. The unaccustomed luxury was like a dream to Frances. It was no longer an effort to put the past away from her. It had sunk of itself into the far dim distance. Very curiously the only memory that remained active in her mind was that of the purple flower that bloomed upon the coping of the cloisters in the Bishop’s garden. The vision of that was fantastically vivid, as it had been on that day of her first talk with Montague Rotherby.

The pain at her heart had wholly ceased, and she wondered a little, barely realizing that she had stilled it temporarily with this anÆsthetic of unreality. But a sub-conscious dread of its return made her steep herself more and more deeply in its oblivion. After all, to whom did it matter except herself? This man with his cynical eyes was too experienced a player to be made a loser in one night. And she had so little left to lose.

She sat in a box with him at the theatre, and though she quickly absorbed herself in the play, she was aware of his undivided attention from the beginning.

It even exasperated her at last, so that she turned to him after the first act with a movement of impatience. “Does it interest you so little,” she said, “that you can’t even be bothered to glance at the stage?”

“I have seen it already three times,” he made answer, “and I am more interested at the present moment in watching the effect it has upon you.”

She uttered a laugh, but the words gave her an odd feeling of shock. The play was a fashionable one, but though it compelled her deepest interest, it held moments of disgust for her as well.

“I should never want to see this more than once,” she said at the end of the second act.

Whereat he laughed. “Your education has been neglected,” he said. “We all think like this now-a-days. The puritanical atmosphere of Tetherstones has spoilt your taste.”

She was silent. Somehow the very word sent a pang to her heart.

He leaned slightly towards her, looking at her. “Tell me about your sojourn at Tetherstones!” he said. “Were the farm people decent to you? Were you happy there?”

There was a slighting note in his voice that she found intolerable. She turned deliberately and met his look.

“You know the Dermots,” she said. “You know quite well that they are not just—farm-people. Why should you conceal the fact?”

He made a careless gesture. “I know that one of them shot me in mistake for a rabbit that night I waited for you,” he said. “I was never more scared in my life. That was the son, I presume? Did he ever mention that episode to you?”

“Never,” she said.

“No? Perhaps he wasn’t very proud of it. Perhaps he realized that the rabbit fallacy wouldn’t carry him very far in a court of law. I fancy he imagined that I was poaching on his preserves.” Rotherby spoke with a sarcastic drawl. “Very unreasonable of him, what?”

She felt the burning colour rise in her face under his eyes, and she averted her own. “Not being in his confidence, I really can hardly give an opinion,” she said.

“Oh, you’re not in his confidence?” said Rotherby. “Somehow I didn’t think you were, or you would hardly be so ready to take up the cudgels in his defence. He’s a curious fellow. I knew him years ago. He had brains as a young man, then somehow he got touched in the upper story and got condemned to the simple life. That was how he came to take up farming. An awful blow to the old man, I believe! I heard he was never the same again afterwards. That is about as far as my information takes me. I must admit that from a personal point of view I am not vastly interested in the family. Did you find them interesting?”

“They were kinder to me than I can possibly say,” Frances said.

The careless information he had given her was like an obnoxious draught that she had been compelled to swallow. But somehow, in spite of herself, she had assimilated it. It explained so much which before had been inexplicable. She remembered how she had more than once asked herself if the lonely gladiator on that Devon moor were always wholly responsible for his actions. And was this why he had told her only that morning that it was no good—no good—that her love was nought but a handicap to be overcome and cast aside?

Again she was conscious of the pain she had stifled waking within her. Again she felt the chill presence of the haunting spectre. Then Rotherby’s voice came to her again, and she turned almost with relief.

“They were decent to you, were they?” he said. “I presume that was why you went back to them from Fordestown?”

She thrust her pain away out of sight of his mocking eyes. “No,” she said quietly. “I went back to be with the little girl before she died. She wanted me.”

He gave a slight start. “What? The blind child that used to run about the lane? Is she dead? What from?”

“She was very fragile,” Frances said, and instinctively she spoke with reverence. “She had a fall which caused an abscess at the base of the brain, affecting the spine. The doctor had always known it might happen at any time. She didn’t suffer—dear little soul.”

“A tragic family!” commented Rotherby, and dropped into silence.

He leaned back in his chair with his face in shadow, and for a space she felt that his attention was no longer focussed upon her.

It gave her a certain sense of relief, for her thoughts would turn back to those few cynical words of his and she needed time to recover from the shock of them. Was it true? Was it true? Was this the key to the riddle that had so often baffled her? Was it for this that she had seen him writhing in agony of soul?

The curtain went up, and she jerked herself back to her surroundings. She tried to immerse herself anew in the play, but her interest was gone. The glamour had faded, and she knew that she was terribly, overwhelmingly tired. A desire for solitude came upon her and with it, inseparable from it, an intolerable sense of exile, a longing that was almost anguish for the peace of the open moors, for the scent of the bog-myrtle, and the rain. ... She closed her eyes, and drew her memories about her like a mantle....