It was very late for Chilworth Cove: past ten o'clock of a dull heavy night: the stars veiled: the purr of a torpid sea coming faint down the Ghyll. One by one the lights in the village windows had been extinguished. But light still poured from the windows of Honeysuckle Cottage; and through the light-motes, the smoke of a man's cigar outcurled in blue seashell whorls that hung long-time--meditative as the man--in the windless quiet.

Ronald Cavendish threw the butt of his cigar after the smoke-whorls, and turned to the two women in the room.

"The mater's right," he said. "We must make some move. But it's no earthly use writing to Jimmy. Jimmy can't help us. The only thing to be done is for me to go up to town and see H. B. myself."

Ever since Caroline had cleared away dinner, they had been discussing the problem of Brunton's inactivity. To Aliette, pride-bound, feeling herself--despite the new alliance with Julia Cavendish--still guilty, still the interloper, it seemed best that they should wait. Silently resenting, yet chiding herself all the while for her resentment, the whole discussion, she had held herself, whenever possible, aloof from it.

But now she could hold aloof no longer. No coward in her own love; willing, for herself, to take any and all risks; the suggested meeting filled her with apprehension for Ronnie.

"I beg you not to do that," she said.

"Why not?" Ronnie laughed. "He can't eat me."

"I'd so much rather you didn't. Perhaps he's only waiting because of some difficulty, some legal difficulty. Wouldn't it be better if I wrote to him again, if we both wrote to him? After all, we mustn't forget that"--she stumbled over the phrase--"we're in the wrong."

"Writing won't do any good," pronounced Julia. "Ninety-nine letters out of every hundred are perfectly futile. The hundredth--is usually an irrevocable mistake."

The novelist, rather pleased with the epigram, sat back in her basketwork chair. For the first time since her quarrel with Ronnie, she had regained that peculiar power of mental detachment--of seeing real personalities, her own included, as characters in a book--which is the exclusive property of the literary temperament.

"All the same," she went on, "I can't help feeling that a personal interview would be risky. It might only exacerbate the position."

"Risky or not," said a determined Ronnie, "it's the only possible thing to be done. Unless H. B. files his petition at once, we shall have to wait the best part of a year before we can get married. And remember, we haven't only ourselves to consider--there's Aliette's family. They'll have to be told sooner or later. Think how much easier it would be if we could tell them that everything was properly arranged."

Julia's newly-regained detachment deserted her. Turning to Aliette, she asked nervously:

"But don't your parents know? Haven't you written to them?"

"Not yet." Beyond the lamplight, the younger woman's face showed scarcely an emotion. "It seemed so useless. You see, I'm not an only child. There'll be no forgiveness--on their side. Mollie may stand by me. But Eva won't. Mother and Andrew will take Eva's advice. They only cared for my brothers. When my brothers were killed, it was just as if everything had gone out of their lives." And she added--pathetically, thought Julia Cavendish, who, loving her own son more than anything in the world, always found difficulty in realizing how frail is the average tie between parents and grown-up daughters: "Mother's rather fond of Eva's children."

"Still, we have to consider them," interrupted Aliette's, lover. "We don't want them to hear the news from--the other side. I think you should write to them, Alie. Mollie I'll go and see myself. Jimmy's sure to know her address. I wonder if she and Jimmy are engaged----"

"Your friend Wilberforce," interrupted Julia, "may be an excellent solicitor; but he's an extremely selfish young man."

"What makes you say that?" asked Aliette; and as Julia did not reply, "Has he spoken to you--about my sister?"

"He has." Julia's voice was rather grim.

"And is--what we've done--going to make any difference?"

"I think not. But if it does," the suspicion of a twinkle gleamed in the blue eyes, "if it does, my dear, your sister will owe you a great debt of gratitude for--running away with my son. That kind of man," definitely, "is no use."

"I've been rather worried about Mollie," began Aliette, whose decision not to await her sister's return had been the most difficult of all the decisions she took in those few hours before she bolted from Lancaster Gate. "That letter of mine----"

She broke off the sentence, divining nevertheless that her letter--meant as a precise document--must have been incoherent to the last degree; divining how impossible a situation her selfishness must have created for Mollie. "I am selfish," she said to herself. "Utterly selfish! I deserve no consideration. And yet these two consider only me."

"Never mind about Mollie." Stubbornly--for now that his mother had joined forces with them it seemed more than ever necessary that they should bring Brunton swiftly to reason--Ronald Cavendish returned to his point. "The question is: When do I go up to town? In my opinion, the sooner the better. Once I have seen H. B., we shall at least know where we stand."

"And suppose," faltered Aliette, "suppose he refuses to see you?"

"He won't."

"Suppose he refuses to do anything?"

"You needn't be afraid of that. A man in his position is bound to take action. If he doesn't----"

"If he doesn't," broke in Julia, "we must fight him. We three." She rose from the creaky chair; and Aliette, seeing the determination, the courage in those old eyes, felt suddenly ashamed of her own weakness. "Meanwhile, I think I'll go to bed. Your maid promised to wait up for me."

Kissing "that woman" good night, Ronnie's mother whispered: "Don't try to overpersuade him. If he feels it is right--he must be allowed to go."