Caroline Staley brought Ronnie's letter, the only one of Monday's post, on Aliette's breakfast-tray. The handwriting of the envelope was strange; but instinct warned her from whom it came. Her heart fluttered--breathlessly--under the satin bath-robe as she said, "I'll ring when I'm ready to dress, Caroline."

But once alone, Aliette did not dare touch the envelope. Casting thought back, she knew that she had loved Ronnie from first sight. Suppose--suppose he had written to make an end?

The breakfast on the tabled tray cooled and cooled. Through the curtained alcove came sound of a housemaid emptying her bath, polishing at the taps. Aliette heard nothing, saw nothing. The cheerful yellow-and-white of her bedchamber had gone dark about her, as though a cloud obscured the sun outside.

At last she took the envelope in her hands. But her hands trembled. And suddenly she saw her own face.

Her face, seen in the triptych mirror of the dressing-table, looked old, haggard. "I am old." she thought. "Nearly thirty. Too old for Ronnie. He ought to have some girl, some quite young girl, for bride."

Then, still trembling, her hands slit the envelope; and hungrily, she began to read.

Reading, joy flooded her face. He wanted her to come to him. He needed her! The mazed loneliness of the last week was a vanished nightmare. She would never be lonely any more. Love had come into her life, into their lives, making them one life. At his postscript, the scarlet of her lips crinkled to a smile.

No longer was the room dark about her. Sunlight flashed back into it, flashed square shafts of gold on the rugs at her feet. A warmth, a rare warmth compound of blood and sunshine, pervaded her body. She saw herself, in the mirror, young again, fit to be his mate.

"I love you." She repeated the words under her breath. "I love you." Rereading the letter, her eyes sparkled. Life was good--good.

But gradually the sparkle in her eyes dimmed; joy went out of her face. "Julia Cavendish," she thought, "Julia Cavendish!" And again, "But life's hard--hard."

Nevertheless life had to be faced.

She faced it, there and then, sitting tense and quiet in the sunlit room. Ronnie was a man. To him, love once confessed must seem a bond, an irrevocable troth. Ought she to take him at his word? Ought she not to strive once again--as they had both so long and so uselessly striven--to forget? Yet could she ever forget? Forgetting, would she not be false to the best in her? To the best in both of them?

Suppose--suppose she ran away with Ronnie? What would be the consequences? A divorce! She could face that, as Mary O'Riordan had faced it. Mary, other friends, would stand by her. If only Ronnie's mother were less the Puritan.

"I must go to Ronnie," she thought. "I must ask him if he has spoken with his mother."

Yes! She must go to Ronnie. No other's counsel could avail her now. No third party could help. They, and they alone, would bear the burden if--if she decided to run away with him. And yet--and yet other people would be affected by their action--his mother, her own family, Mollie.

Impulsively she decided to send for Mollie, to sound her. She rang the bell for Caroline, but Caroline told her that "Miss Mollie" had gone out.

"Will I dress you now, madam?" asked the maid. "The master's been gone nearly an hour." It seemed impossible to find any excuse for remaining longer alone.

Dressing, the unsolved problem still haunted her mind. But already one aspect of the problem had solved itself--the aspect of Ronnie. Ronnie's word was not to be doubted. He loved her, he needed her--as she him. For themselves, they must no more funk the issue of Hector divorcing her than they had funked Parson's Brook. "Parson's Brook," thought Aliette. "Was it an omen?"

And at that, ominously, her imagination concentrated on the other aspect of the problem, on the public aspect; till it seemed as though a whole host of people, his mother, her own parents, Mollie, James Wilberforce, and her husband among them, were actually visible in the bedchamber; till it seemed as though Aliette could actually feel the eyes of the host on her, appraising the curves of her figure, the vivid masses of her hair.

Fastidiously she tried to avoid the eyes; but the eyes would not be gainsaid; they turned to her breast, seeking out Ronnie's letter, his love-letter, which she had hidden there. The eyes were not yet hostile, only appraising; but behind them--imagination knew--lurked souls ready to kindle into hostility. "They're waiting," thought Aliette, "waiting to know my decision. Yet the decision is mine--mine only." Imagination petered out, leaving her mind a blank.

Caroline asked a question; and she answered it automatically, "Yes; the green hat, please."

Her maid brought the hat--and, in a second as it seemed, she was standing before the long cheval-glass, completely dressed, completely ready to--leave Hector's house.

Looking back, Aliette now realizes that moment to have been the definitive crossing of her Rubicon. Subconsciously, in that one particular instant of time, her decision crystallized. She, who had always hated "funking things," would not funk love. Love was either worth the leap, or worth nothing. If nothing, then life's self was not worth while. And the risk was the leaper's, only the leaper's. Considering others, she had forgotten to consider herself.

She looked at that self in the long mirror.

Surely those brown eyes, burning deep into their own semblance, were never fashioned for long perplexity; surely, they had been given her so that she might visualize truth. Surely, those scarlet lips were not made for lying; nor those slim feet for running away.

And suddenly, subconsciously, Aliette knew that all her life hitherto she had been lying to her own soul, running away from truth. Life, woman's life at its highest, meant mating. Without matehood, motherhood's self must be a failure. And she, she was neither mate nor mother. Remaining with Hector, her very bodily beauty would wither--wither unmated, sterile. For, to Hector--even if she yielded to Hector--and how, loving Ronnie, could she yield herself to Hector?--she would never be more than legal concubine. No matehood there, only degradation. Better to kill one's self, better to smash the sacred vessel in pieces, than allow it to be profaned--as profaned it must be--by any man's touch save Ronnie's.

"And surely," said some dim voice in that soul which was Aliette, "surely this is nature's verity: To each one of us, unhindered, our mate- and mother-hood! Surely, in nature's eyes, our parents are but dry and empty vessels, milkless gourds rattling on a dead tree."

Her letter, sent "express" to Jermyn Street, read: "If you are quite, quite sure of your own feelings, I will come to you to-morrow afternoon. Whatever we decide best to do, must be done openly. I love you--perhaps that is why I have been so afraid. I am not afraid any more. Aliette."