It was easy to slip away alone. Ruth knew that Gloria, who had gone to her own room, expected to be followed, but she did not want to talk alone with Gloria until she had seen Professor Pendragon. She found the enclosed veranda, a sleeping porch above the sun room. She threw a heavy cloak about her shoulders and passed unobserved down the hall and through the narrow doorway leading outside. He was there, waiting for her in his wheel chair. There was another chair beside him, perhaps for the nurse. She could look out over a wide circle of white hills with masses of dark green where fir trees clustered in the hollows. The outer edge of the circle was stained a deep rose, so that hill and cloud lay heaped against the sunset bathed in cold flame.

She moved toward him slowly, wondering how she would begin now that she had kept her rendezvous. He laid down the pipe he had been smoking and held out a hand to her, a hand through which the light seemed to shine, it was so pale and thin.

She sat down beside him without speaking at once and looked for a moment at the sunset hills. They seemed so quiet and cold and peaceful. What she was going to say would sound strange and unreal here—more strange even than it sounded in New York.

“I want to talk to you about Gloria,” she began, but he did not speak when she paused, so she went on:

“When you sent me that card to the water colour show—it was at breakfast I got it—Gloria told me that she’d been married to you. She’s my aunt—my father’s sister, but I’d never seen her until after father and mother both died and I came here to study art. Mother sent me to her because she is my only living relative. She didn’t know you were in New York until I got that card, and she asked me not to tell you about her, so I lied when you asked me about myself, or at least didn’t tell the truth. Then just before we came here I saw Nels Zord and he told me you were here too. At first I thought of telling Gloria, but I didn’t because I want you to help me. I want you to save Gloria.”

“I’m afraid I can’t save Gloria, my child, any more than Gloria can save me—she perhaps has lost her soul—tomorrow I lose my life. It is all set and we have as little to do with it as with that thin thread of waning moon up there, which tomorrow night will be utterly dark.”

“But don’t you see, Gloria doesn’t understand and that’s why she is helpless; but you do understand and can prevent things. You said yourself to me once, ‘The stars incline but do not compel.’ If you won’t help me I must do everything alone, but you must tell me the truth, isn’t George the cause of your illness?”

He leaned suddenly toward her.

“Why do you think that?”

“You talked about the evil eye and the dark of the moon; the others, Nels and Dorothy, thought you were joking or talking in riddles, but I didn’t. The night of the show, when you were first stricken, I saw George performing incantations before a horrible snake—a black cobra, I think; a month later he worshipped the snake again and your illness increased. He has come here because Angela wants him to entertain us with his music hall magic. I am afraid that he will use the snake. You say you are to lose your life tomorrow; if George is the cause of your illness, then that is true.”

He was still leaning toward her, searching her face in the waning light. He spoke slowly as if his words were but a surface ripple over a deep lake of thought.

“It is true that my illness is mind-born—I have known that from the beginning—and that it is not of myself, and I have tried to discover who could have thought it on me. It may be, as you suggest, that George has done it. It is an answer, but why?”

“Because of Gloria,” she said. With another man it would have been difficult to tell her beliefs, but for the moment it seemed as if they two were hanging suspended in the dusk-blue bowl of mountain and sky, and the soul, eager yet indifferent of life, that looked out of his eyes, commanded absolute truth.

“George loves her—he is a Hindoo, and for no other reason would he have been her servant all these years. At first he understood the prejudices of a Western woman and realized that he couldn’t marry her, but I think if you will look back perhaps now you can see how he separated you and Gloria. I have never seen the two men who followed, but I think he must have hypnotized her into marrying them, and then himself broken the marriages, and now she is going to marry this horrible Prince Aglipogue. George is forcing her to do that. He boasted that it was so to me. It will ruin her career and make her poor, and break her heart with shame when she wakes to what she has done. Then George will claim his reward. He did not mention your name when he talked to me, but he said, ‘There is only one other fit to walk beside her, and he is slowly dying of an unknown disease.’ You see there is only one link gone from my story and that is how you let Gloria go at first. Why did you, why did you?”

In the retelling of the story that had occupied her mind all these weeks, putting all her fears into words, it seemed that the danger she told had grown fourfold. When she had tried to tell Terry his very attitude of uncomprehension had made her story sound unreal, but when she told it now, she saw belief and understanding in Pendragon’s eyes, and something else—a resignation that maddened her. It was as if he watched Gloria being murdered and made no movement to protect her.

“Why, why?” she demanded again, grasping his arm with tense fingers. She could almost have shaken him.

He seemed quite unmoved by her excitement.

“Gloria had met George before we were married,” he said in his quiet voice. “She found him ill, you know, and paid his debts and got him a doctor, and when he was well he wanted to serve her. I didn’t like him and advised her not to take him; it would have been much better for him to go back to his profession, but he begged to come and she liked him; perhaps his devotion flattered her. Everything went well until the night when Gloria was to open in a new play. I never went much to the theatre. I thought it better to leave her alone in her professional life, and on this night the planet Eros—a small planet discovered quite recently in our new solar system—was to be very near—much nearer than it had ever been but once before, much nearer than it would be again for many years. The first time the astronomers of the world had missed a wonderful opportunity; this time they were all watching. We were to take photographs if the weather permitted; by means of Eros and comparative calculations we would discover something exact about the distance and weight of many other planets. It was the opportunity of a century.

“We had a small flat in London and George was acting as a sort of butler and sometimes valeting me as well. I hated having him around, but Gloria said he was happier when he was busy. I remember now everything that happened and how he looked at me. ‘You are going to the theatre tonight, Sir?’ he said, and I had the impression that he often gave me, that he was being impertinent, almost insulting, though there was neither impertinence nor insult in his words or manner.

“‘No; I’m due at the observatory,’ I answered. There had been no idea of my going to the opening in my mind, or in Gloria’s, I think, until that moment, but when George had left us she turned on me with reproaches. She said that I took no interest in her work; that I was jealous of her career and that I must choose between her and the stars that night. I dare say I was very stupid, but she seemed quite strange and unreasonable as I had never seen her before, and I said some rather nasty things. She said if I did not go to the theatre she would never return to the flat. Of course I said that was unnecessary—that I would go. I did; expecting a message from her every day. The only message I got was from her lawyers in Paris, where she had gone for a divorce. That’s the story.”

He stopped talking now, but Ruth waited. Over the hills the rose flush had faded, the thin, keen blade of the almost disappearing moon hung like a scimitar in a field of dark purple and resting above it a star hung, trembling, as if waiting for the cold arms of a laggard lover.

“I suppose half confidences won’t do,” he said at last. “I still love Gloria; what man once having loved her could forget? ‘Time cannot change nor custom stale her infinite variety’; but of what use to fight one’s destiny—in another incarnation, perhaps. I cannot believe all that you say of George. That he is a Mahatma is doubtless true, that he loves Gloria is gruesomely natural, that he hates me and has put upon me this mind-born malady is reasonable, but that he should possess, or even aspire to possess, Gloria is incredible.”

There was a sadness on his face, another worldness in his eyes, but there was no light of battle there, and Ruth, whose youth and energy cried out for action, felt as if she were beating with futile hands against a stone wall.

“But he does want her, and he’s going to succeed if you don’t do something. If he has the power to kill you, he has the power to do these other things too. Even if you don’t believe this, you must do something to save your own life.”

“I’m afraid I’m not very keen about living; if I die now it is an easy way out—”

She wanted to protest that if he had courage he might yet win Gloria again, but she did not dare raise hopes that might never be fulfilled. Even if Gloria were saved from the Prince who could tell that she might not marry Terry?

“That’s weak, and cowardly,” she said, “and if you believe in the wisdom of the East you know that in the next life you will not enjoy the fruit of any joy for which you have not struggled in this. You are selfish, too. Even if you no longer care for your own life, you must do what you can to help Gloria.”

“She no longer wants anything from me; she would only resent my interference.”

“You are thinking only of yourself—what difference can her attitude make now? Promise me that you will do something—promise—”

“Perhaps the voice of youth is the voice to follow—I am afraid I have grown old and age does not love knighthood, but I promise that if I see any way in which to change her destiny and mine, I will make what effort I can. I will think about it.”

It was almost dark now, and Gloria was standing beside them before they saw her.

“Angela’s been looking for you; she wants you to play billiards, Ruth.”

“But I don’t know how.”

“That doesn’t make any difference; neither do I and neither does Miss Gilchrist; you just stand around and make the men wish that you’d go away and let them have a good game—but don’t go just yet,” as Ruth started away. “I want to say something to Professor Pendragon and I don’t want to be alone with him.”

Ruth could not see his face very clearly, but she saw his long white hands clenching over the arms of his chair.

“I thought, of course, when we met this morning, that you would find some excuse for going away on the next train, Percy.”

“Why should I do that, Gloria? I did not know you were coming; you did not know I was here. We have been thrown together for a brief time. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Peyton-Russell knows that we have met before. I have promised to stay over the New Year. John knows I haven’t any particular business interest to call me away. I thought the least conspicuous thing would be to stay. My illness makes it easy for me to stay much in my own rooms. We need not meet often, but if you wish, of course, I can go tomorrow.”

There was no trace of bitterness or anger in his voice. He spoke in a cold, casual way as if he were discussing some rather boring detail of business.

“I do wish it very much—Prince Aglipogue has asked Angela to announce our engagement tomorrow night. Of course no one but Ruth and Mr. Riordan knows that we have ever met before, but it will be awkward for me, even though you seem to have forgotten everything.”

Her voice, as cold as his at the beginning, deepened and trembled on the last words, whether with tears or anger Ruth could not tell. She only knew that both of these people were suffering as only proud people can suffer and she did not want to watch. She tried to slip away, but Gloria’s hand on her arm restrained her.

“Really, Gloria, I don’t see why you should announce a thing like that; you might as well make an announcement every time you buy a new frock.”

The words could not have cut Gloria more than they did Ruth. Surely this was not the man who not fifteen minutes earlier had told her that he still loved Gloria? If he had hated her he could have said nothing more rude. She felt Gloria’s hand tighten on her arm as if for support.

“I will go, then; you need not trouble,” she said in a low voice.

“No; forgive me—I will go on the early train.”

But already Gloria had turned and was walking away, and Ruth, not knowing what to say, followed, her heart aching for both the woman and the lonely man outside. Gloria did not pause nor look back and Ruth suspected that she dared not turn her face for fear of disclosing tears.

The warm air inside made Ruth realize for the first time that, though sheltered, it was very cold outside. She hesitated, wondering whether to follow Gloria or to go back and beg Professor Pendragon not to remain longer out of doors. Gloria decided her by walking steadily forward and turning into her own room, closing the door behind her.

He was still sitting where they had left him, staring out into the blue-black sky. Even his hands still clung tightly to the arms of his chair as they had when she had left him.

“I’ve just discovered that it’s terrifically cold out here and you ought to come in,” she said, trying to speak as if nothing had happened.

“The nurse was to have come out for me a long time ago; I dare say she saw us talking and went back. If you think you could push the chair for me—I haven’t any crutches here—I will go in,” he answered in the same tone.

Without speaking she moved to the back of the chair and began wheeling him toward the door. It really moved very easily. She stopped at the door, opened it and pushed him through.

“Which door?” she asked.

“That one,” he pointed.

It was next to Gloria’s room and across the hall from her own. The obvious thought came to her of how these two, apparently so near, were separated by a bridgeless ocean of misunderstanding.