1

"I don't know how lately you've seen Eric," said Lady Lane, "but I'm frightened at the way he's losing weight."

Dr. Gaisford smiled reassuringly and rang for tea.

"I've ordered him a complete rest and change for three months."

"But he won't take it! The head of his department wants him to give a course of lectures in America, but he won't leave London. If you're more in his confidence than I am——"

"Eric pays us both the compliment of thinking us too old to have eyes, ears or brains—a common delusion among boys in love. No, he's told me nothing, but he's visibly wearing himself out in adoration of a very fascinating young woman; so, as he won't go away, she shall. There's no present cause for alarm."

"I wish I could think that.… Of course, you must never tell him that I've been talking to you behind his back."

The warning was an anticlimax after Lady Lane's desperate remedy of coming to Wimpole Street and presenting all her fears and suspicions for the doctor's diagnosis. In a life-time of anxiety and effort she was hardly more communicative or self-pitying than her son; and Gaisford divined that more than ordinary compulsion had sent her to him.

"Speaking as a friend of both parties," he said, "I don't know what the hitch is. I haven't heard that the parents are making any trouble; and, if they did, I'm afraid naughty little Barbara would just snap her fingers at them."

"You think she's in earnest?" asked Lady Lane doubtfully.

"I do indeed—knowing something of her; and for the first time in her life.… I hope it will all come right. In the meantime, she's been ill and her father doesn't like the way the Government's conducting the war, so they're shaking off the dust of England for the Riviera. Eric will have his rest, whether he likes it or not."

For the first fifteen months of the war Lord Crawleigh had carried out a campaign, unsparing to his readers, his hearers and himself, to wake England to a more lively realization of her perils. His position and long record of public service secured him an undisturbed hearing as he floundered through the potentialities of Mittel-Europa with the aid of a lantern and pointer; and his audience was usually rewarded for its patience when he forsook high politics and set its flesh agreeably creeping with a peroration compounded equally of German spies and pro-German ministers. The campaign throve in the south, but slackened in the midlands and stopped short in the north. At the same time Lord Crawleigh's prescriptive right to the "leader" page of all daily papers met with a challenge from certain disrespectful sub-editors who first mislaid him among foreign telegrams and later buried him ignominiously in small type. It was when a thoughtful exegesis on "The War and Indian Home Rule," extending over two columns, had been held up for three days without acknowledgement, apology or explanation, that Lord Crawleigh decided to teach his countrymen a sharp lesson by withdrawing to the south of France until the spring.

Any inducement to leniency was overruled when Barbara succumbed to an attack of pleurisy. As soon as she was fit to move, he ordered his villa to be made ready, set the dismantling of his London house in hand, closed Crawleigh Abbey and carried his wife and daughter to Charing Cross with a relentlessness and speed which gave their departure the appearance of an abduction. The pleurisy developed four days after Christmas, and Eric had not seen Barbara since the night of their sick-room dinner. A week after they reached the Riviera, he heard a story, traced without difficulty to Gerald Deganway, that Lord Crawleigh had spirited Barbara away from the danger of a mÉsalliance. But, in wrestling with the necessary evils of life, Eric was finding, as others had done before him, that Gerald Deganway was the irreducible minimum; it was of greater importance that for three months no one would have cause to gossip about them; and by that time even the Warings could not reasonably hope for tidings of Jack.

Her departure cleared Eric's mind of its last misgivings and convinced him that Barbara was no longer a casually pleasant companion but an urgently needed wife. In her absence, he was thrown back on the bachelor society of the Thespian Club, though with every meal that he ate there came a growing dread that he would be absorbed into it until younger generations, watching him as he pored over the day's bill of fare with his cronies or grew petulant with the servants, came to regard him as part of the club's furniture—as part of every club's furniture—wifeless, childless, friendless and uninterested, a bore who had outstayed the welcome and even the toleration of a community founded to keep his like from utter loneliness. Sometimes, as he looked at the men who would never marry, he wondered what would become of him if Jack Waring appeared suddenly, if Barbara fell in love with some one else, if she fell out of love as quickly as she had fallen in love.…

At the end of March a telegram from Folkestone announced her return and invited him to dine with her.

Eric walked up the familiar stairs, with the august butler, at whose nod or frown he had once trembled, turning at intervals to impart confidences from the advantageous height of an advance stair. ("We" had only come back the day before and were, on the whole, better for the change. He was afraid her ladyship would hardly be dressed yet.… If Mr. Lane did not mind waiting a moment.… There was the evening paper.…) Eric settled himself with a comfortable sense of home-coming, his eyes on Barbara's bedroom door, wondering how she would greet him. Their last dinner together demanded recognition and a subtile modification of manner.

"Darling, how are you after all this time?" Barbara was on her knees by his chair before he realized that she was in the room. "When do you start? You never said a word about it in your letters."

He stood up and pulled her gently to her feet. Invitingly she craned her head forward, offering him her lips.

"About what?"

"Your American tour. The Vieux boulevardier said you were going to deliver a course of lectures in America."

Common-form invitations had reached him from time to time through his agent, but, after the first, he had relegated them unread to the waste-paper basket. And his department was still urging him abroad.

"I've no intention of going yet awhile," he told her. "It was only a newspaper rumour; perhaps some day I shall make it true. You remember that there was another rumour which my mother told me had in fact got into some provincial rag? Some day that also may be true."

He lighted a cigarette and looked at her with a faint, enquiring smile.

"Eric!" she cried with reproachful warning, though he felt that she was enjoying the thin ice on to which they had glided.

As a smile dimpled its way into her cheeks, he tired of the badinage.

"Well, did you have a good time, Babs?" he asked abruptly.

"Good? M'well.… I travelled the whole way with all the clothes in the world wrapped round my throat and chest. When I woke up just beyond Marseilles, it was so hot that I threw off one thing after another, until I'd got down to a blouse and skirt. Next morning, there was a glorious hot sun.… I jumped out of bed and ran bare-foot into the verandah and stood there—don't be shocked, darling!—in my night-gown, stretching out my arms to gather all the heavenly warmth. I couldn't have coughed if you'd paid me to. It was divine, but I suddenly discovered there was one thing wanting. Can you guess what it was?"

"From your description, most things were wanting."

"Darling, if you're prosaic, I just shan't talk to you. I discovered that I wanted some one to share it with. If you knew the glorious feeling of standing bare-foot on hot marble! I wanted you, Eric! I always want you when I'm happy, because I must share my happiness with some one; and I want you when I'm unhappy, because I'm too proud to shew my unhappiness to any one who doesn't love me. I hate the second-best and I'm so glad to see you again!"

Eric considered her with his head on one side and his hands in his pockets, cautiously and without committing himself.

"Well, Babs, if you don't always have me at hand for all your moods and all your needs——"

"Yes?"

He turned away to knock the ash from his cigarette and to avoid a possible change of expression in her eyes.

"My dear, you'll have only yourself to blame."

"I know. Bless you, dear Eric. Somehow, I was afraid you might have changed. Thinking of you all those miles away, I felt you were too good to be true. Let's go down to dinner. You've only got me, I'm afraid. Will you be bored?"

"I don't suppose so," he answered, smiling; but, indefinably, he was disappointed.

2

The Crawleighs spent a month in London before repairing to Hampshire for the summer.

"Make the most of me," said Barbara, when her father's decision was made known. "You may never see me again."

"I wonder whether you'd mind," Eric mused. "Don't you sometimes feel that I've served my turn?"

"That's a horrid thing to say! If anything took you out of my life … Say you're sorry this very moment!"

Eric laughingly complied, but he could not easily shake off his disappointment that Barbara had come back after three months without nerving herself to make a decision. Though Jack Waring's name was still never mentioned, he felt that she was increasingly unreasonable in honouring any superstitious obligation to his memory. A vague, resentful impatience ruffled the serenity of their meetings; and, though they plotted to lunch or dine together daily and counted the remaining hours with jealous concern, Eric was shocked to find himself secretly relieved when Barbara said "Only another week."

"I've not seen very much of you," he grumbled inconsistently. "Why don't you dine with me to-morrow?"

Barbara had undergone some transformation in the last six months until she seemed hardly to need him. In the old days she was a slave to be summoned by a clap of the hands; but, since he had healed her spirit, she was a queen to be courted.

"I'll come, if you like," she said. "It means throwing over George Oakleigh. And I haven't seen him since I came back."

"I shouldn't dream of asking you to do that. I've chosen an unfortunate day. I've chosen rather a lot of unfortunate days lately," he added.

"Is that very gracious, Eric? I've said I'll come."

The desire to get his own way and the growing need of her struggled confusedly with the resolve to be patient and the politic determination to court her as a queen.

"No, you keep to your original plan," he advised her; and then, with thinly-veiled taunt, "It's funny to look back on the old days, when you were miserable if twelve hours passed without our meeting. D'you remember when you used to say how much you needed me?"

"I need you still," she answered, wondering at his new irritability.

"You got on very comfortably without me at the Cap Martin——"

"I should have been very uncomfortable if I hadn't known that you were thinking of me, waiting for me, loving me, even——"

"And you'll get on very comfortably when you're at Crawleigh Abbey," he persisted. "And to-morrow——"

"I've said I'll come to-morrow. Eric, you're not jealous of my dining with other people? You're talking as if you were trying to pick a quarrel. You were always so sweet.…"

"I'm not conscious of having changed," he answered stiffly.

But he was conscious of a change in her. While he was still indifferent, she had prostrated herself before him; when he confessed his love, she gathered up his own cast robes of indifference. It was feminine nature, and her "education" of him was at least illustrating the sex-generalizations which a man ought to have learned before leaving his dame's-school.

"Don't let's quarrel, darling!" she begged. "Whatever you ask, I'll do! But, when I give, I want to give everything. Won't you be patient with me?"

Ever since her return to England, Eric's nerves had been strained until he found it first difficult and then impossible to work or sleep. When he met her, there was always some trifling cause of annoyance; when he stayed away, there was hunger and loneliness.

"I wonder how long you'd like me to be patient," he murmured.

"Before I marry you? Is that what you mean? Eric, I promise in the sight of God that I'll marry you as soon as I can do it with a good conscience. You don't want me to be haunted all my life. And now, when we even speak of it…It's my punishment."

"I'm sorry, Barbara. I've made you look quite miserable."

She bent his head forward and kissed him.

"I've never been really miserable since I knew that you loved me," she whispered.

Though the quarrel was composed, the taut nerves were still unrelaxed; and, after two more nights of insomnia, Eric was driven to consult his doctor. The examination, with its attendant annoyances of sounding and questioning, weighing and measuring, was tiresomely thorough; but at the end Gaisford could only suggest change of scene and occupation.

"I'm not a good subject for rest," Eric objected.

"I'm not sending you into a home," said Gaisford. "Why not go out to California for six months? You can scribble there as well as anywhere."

"If I work at all, it ought to be this propaganda job," Eric suggested.

"Then do your propaganda job elsewhere. I want to get you out of London. Do you want me to speak frankly? You're seeing much too much of an exceedingly attractive young woman. If you're going to marry her, marry her; if not, break away. Flesh and blood can't stand your present life."

Eric left him without giving a pledge, because he felt too tired for the effort of going away from Barbara for six months. Since he had reduced his hours of work, there was no excuse for this everlasting sense of limp fatigue; granted the fatigue, there was no excuse for his not sleeping. The doctor had paid curiously little attention to the insomnia and was childishly interested in making him blow down a tube and register the cubic capacity of his lungs. There had never been a hint of phthisis in the family, but the medical profession could be trusted to recommend six months in California when a man needed only one injection of morphia to secure a night's sleep.

He had forgotten Gaisford and his advice when Barbara came to say good-bye on her last day in London.

"My dear, have you been ill?" she asked with concern. "I've been told to use my influence to get you away for a holiday. What's been the matter?"

"I don't know. And Gaisford shouldn't discuss one patient with another. He wants me to go to California for six months."

"Then you'll go? You must go!" Barbara's eyes were wide with distress. "I insist!"

"I'm thinking it over," he answered, a little startled. "I'm not a bit keen to leave you, Babs."

"D'you think I'm keen to lose you? Darling Eric, if you know what you mean to me…But you've got to get well!"

"I don't know why California should make the—waiting any easier."

"Ah, don't say I've made you ill! I'll say 'yes' Eric.… Now.… But I should only be able to give you a little piece of myself, I should always be divided.… I don't think you really want that, and you'd be simply wretched if you found you'd spoiled my life after saving it.… Eric, don't hurry me? It's only April. Wait till twelve months have gone by since the—news. If there's no further news…Wait till—my birthday!"

Next morning, Barbara departed to Crawleigh Abbey, and for a month they did not meet. As spring budded and blossomed into summer, Eric counted the days that separated him from the fulfilment of her promise. There was no reason for him to be anxious; but his mind was filled with nervous images, and imagination suggested a thousand fantastic ways in which Barbara might be snatched from him. As her birthday drew near, he forced a meeting with Agnes Waring and once more asked if there was any news of Jack.

"Nothing yet," she answered. "A long time, isn't it?"

"Very long.…" He hated himself for the hypocrisy of this conventional solicitude, when he was only impatient for authentic news that his best friend was dead. "You'll let me know…?"

"Of course I will, Eric," Agnes answered. "I don't know when——"

Her undramatic courage, reinforced by his own sense of make-believe sympathy, restored him to sincerity. Though he had never been in love with Agnes—as Barbara had taught him to understand the term—he was still fond of her.

"I wish you came to London sometimes," he said, beating his stick against the side of his boot. "It would make a little bit of a break for you. Will you let me give you dinner and take you to a play?"

It was the first time in eight months that he had made her any sign of affection, and she looked at him curiously. Eric wondered whether she imagined that he had failed elsewhere and was drifting back to her.

"Somehow I hardly feel——" she began. "Dick Benyon—you remember we brought him over to dine with you?—wanted me to come.…"

"It can't do any harm."

"It can't do any harm, certainly. I'll talk to mother about it."

Two days later she wrote to suggest a night, and Eric felt that he had involuntarily succeeded where young Benyon had failed; a week later he was waiting for her in the lounge of the Carlton. Though she had stipulated for a seven o'clock dinner so that they should be in their places before the curtain went up, half-past seven had struck before she hurried in with breathless apologies.

"It's all right, but I'm afraid your cocktail will be tepid," he said. "I ordered it beforehand to save time. I suppose you couldn't get a taxi."

"Yes." She laid her hand on his arm for support and walked with the same breathlessness into the restaurant. "My head's in a whirl.… I nearly telephoned to say I couldn't come—but I didn't see what good that would do. Eric, I want you to straighten this out for me; Jack was reported missing on the 27th——"

"Of August. Last year. Yes."

"Well, father had a letter from Cranborne's the army bankers, just before I left this morning, to say that a cheque had come in—through Holland, I think—dated October the 9th. Apparently a lot of people are traced in that way, and Cranborne's wanted father to know as soon as possible. They sent the cheque and asked father to look at it very carefully and say if he was satisfied that it was Jack's signature; then they'd know what to do about it or something.…"

Eric looked at her unwaveringly and bade her finish her story. He tried to tell himself that he had always expected and discounted this.

"I brought the cheque with me and had a long talk with one of the partners. That's why I'm so late. There's no doubt about it, Eric! Mr. Cranborne—told me—as a banker—that he was prepared to honour the cheque—is that the phrase?—as being signed by Jack—on that day. What does it mean, Eric? I want you to explain it all."

A voluble waiter was gesticulating and seeking instructions about the wine.

"Oh, open it now!" Eric exclaimed without turning round. A moment later the champagne was creaming slowly up his glass. He drained it, coughed once and collected himself.

"Let's first hear what Cranborne said," he suggested.

"Oh, he had all sorts of theories! That Jack had lost his memory—he remembered his name all right—; that some one had found the cheque on his body after the push and altered the date—a cheque for ten pounds—; that he'd tried to escape, and those brutes had punished him by not letting us know he was a prisoner.… It doesn't matter, does it, Eric? He's alive! That's what I want you to say to me! He's alive!"

"He was alive on the ninth of October," he amended.

"Weeks after the push? Then he's alive now! Isn't he, Eric? He must be! I was right in believing.… Eric, will you think me an awful pig, if we waste the tickets to-night? I'd so much, much sooner sit and talk to you. It's so wonderful! It's like a man rising from the dead! It's——"

"You must get some food inside you," he ordered prosaically. "Take your time. Don't try to tell me all about it in one breath."

She gulped a mouthful of fish and looked up with brimming eyes.

"Oh, Eric, if you only understood what it meant.…" Her expression changed to blank fear. "You do believe he's still alive?"

"I do." He bent down and fumbled for the wine with a needless clatter in the ice-pail. "Agnes, for your sake, for all your sakes, I'm very, very glad!"

3

The next morning Eric called on Dr. Gaisford in Wimpole Street before going to his office. His brain felt numbed, and he had to speak with artful choice of words to prevent being tripped up by a stammer. The doctor looked once at his drawn face and pink eye-lids, then pushed a chair opposite his own and tidied away his papers.

"I suppose you have breakfasted, by the way?" he asked.

"Well, I'm not much of a breakfast-eater," Eric answered. "You must forgive a very early call, Gaisford; it's so hard for me to get away during the day. Well, it's the old trouble; I'm sleeping abominably. I took your wretched medicine, but it didn't have any effect."

"H'm. You did not take my advice to go right away."

"It hasn't been practicable so far. I may go—quite soon. But I've a certain number of things to finish off and I want to be absolutely at my best for them." He moistened his lips and repeated "I want to be absolutely at my best for them. I've been rather worried and I've lost confidence in myself."

Gaisford listened to his symptoms, asked a few questions and set about his examination. At the end he made a note in his card-index and wrote out a prescription.

"If you're not careful," he said deliberately, as he blotted it, "you'll have a bad break-down. Now, I never tell people to do things, when I know they're going to disobey me; I shan't order you to California to-day, I shan't knock you off all work. But how soon can you go?"

"Oh—a week, if I have to," Eric answered carelessly.

"Then go in a week. Your own work, your writing—can you drop that absolutely? It's far more exhausting—anything creative—than your office-work. And what's your minimum for your office? Don't do a stroke more than the minimum. As regards your general mode of life…"

He ordained a rigid, but familiar, rule of diet, exercise and rest; and Eric's attention began to wander. As well bid him add a cubit to his stature! He wondered how much Gaisford suspected.…

He became aware, in mid-reverie, that the doctor had finished speaking.

"And I'm to take this stuff?" Eric tried to read the prescription. "Strychnine—Is that right? Iron? Bromide? I can't make a guess at the other things. I say, Gaisford, will this make me sleep?"

A hint of despair in his voice was not lost on the doctor.

"I hope so. It will tone up your nervous system. But it's only for a week, mind! That's the limit of your reprieve before you go away. Don't imagine that stimulants and sedatives take the place of natural food or rest. Whatever—odds and ends you have to clear up must be cleared up within the next week."

Eric nodded and held out his hand. Gaisford had understood, then.… He wondered how long the medicine would take to "tone up" his nerves, for he had written a telegram to Barbara the night before, as soon as Agnes left him.

He walked to his office, trying to face the position more clearly than he had been able to do in the night. Why fret and worry? Barbara's "solemn promise" had already been broken in spirit; if she kept it in form, she would be haunted by a new memory, the intrusive shadow would take on a more terrific outline. There was no proof that Jack was alive … but Eric believed without proof; no certainty that he would present his claim…but Barbara would see nothing but certainty. Two allegiances, two promises…and no one could tell which she would choose.

Eric was walking blindly through streets which only his feet recognized. Regency Theatre.… And he had been heading for Whitehall. He would never go to the Regency again without seeing her—either a head leaning against his knee at rehearsal as they sat on a platform over the orchestra, or in their box, hand in hand, as on the first night of "The Bomb-Shell," when his nerves were jangling like the broken wires of a harp; he could never go to Mrs. Shelley's house without hearing her singing Madame Butterfly's song—and without some fool's asking if he had seen anything of Lady Barbara lately.…

A telegram was waiting for him, when at last he reached his office: Barbara would come up that day and dine with him; she hoped that he had received no bad news.… Eleven o'clock; and he would not see her until eight. He was too restless to work and at one o'clock he handed his papers to a colleague and slunk into the street. His foot-steps were turned towards the Thespian Club; but he could not pass the hall-porter without looking for a note, as on the night when he dined in his triumph with Lord Ettrick; he could not see a page-boy without expecting to find that Barbara had telephoned to him.…

Half-way across the Horse Guards' Parade, he encountered George Oakleigh.

"Hallo! Come and have some lunch with me, if you've nothing better to do," he said. "I haven't seen you for a long time."

"Not since we met at Barbara Neave's," answered Oakleigh. "Where is she? I've quite lost sight of her."

"They're all down at Crawleigh," said Eric. Every one would come to him as the leading authority on Barbara's movements. "What about the Carlton? I can usually get hold of a table."

As they entered the lounge, Eric wondered why he had chosen this of all places. Last night's ordeal should have kept him away for ever; and the band was playing a waltz which he had heard when Barbara dined with him on her return from the Cap Martin. Music, especially the seductiveness of the waltz rhythm, was bad enough at any time when one needed to keep one's nerves unstimulated.…

When Oakleigh returned to the Admiralty, Eric stood aimlessly in Trafalgar Square, wondering what to do. It was too late for a matinÉe; and theatres were all becoming reminiscent of Barbara. He had long meant to order a new dessert-service and was only waiting until Barbara was in London again. Perhaps, that night, they would be saying good-bye for ever; he could no longer tell himself stories of the life that he wanted her to share with him. Perhaps, when she came to choose a dessert-service, it would be with some one else; she would give to some one else all that she had given him, all that she had been unable to give him.…

He was home before he knew that he was even walking homewards and thankful when his housekeeper came to discuss dinner. He chose a cigar and at once put it back in the box. His hand was shaking; and, if he once began to smoke, he would never stop. Stimulants and sedatives, he must remember, were not the same as natural food and rest; therefore he had drunk nothing at luncheon, therefore he would not smoke now. There was nothing that he could do; and Barbara's train did not reach Waterloo for another hour.…

His sense of time became dulled: Barbara was standing in the doorway before he had even thought of dressing.

"My dear! I expected to find you in bed! How dare you give me such a fright? When I got your telegram this morning—oh, I'm out of breath! I ran all the way upstairs!—you'd been saying that you felt so ill! Tell me what it's all about. I had the most awful difficulty with father about getting away; he couldn't make out why I always wanted to rush up to London just when he'd got people staying down there——"

"I didn't mean to work on your emotions," said Eric, as he helped her out of her cloak.

"Sweetheart, whatever I was doing, you know I'd come from the ends of the earth, if you were ill. But I'm afraid father'll think me a fraud. It'll be your fault if I can't get away next week."

Eric had to think for a moment before he recalled that her birthday fell in the following week. It was the first time that she had referred even indirectly to it on her own initiative. He looked at her closely, but her face revealed only high spirits and a radiant pleasure in being with him again.

"I wanted to talk over one or two things with you," he explained, "We shall start fairer if you don't feel you're under any obligation to me——"

She caught hold of his hand and kissed it.

"I shall always feel that, Eric."

"Well, for to-night I want you to feel quite unembarrassed. I want to talk to you about Jack Waring. He was reported missing last August."

Barbara's face grew suddenly grave; and, in a whisper, she supplied the date.

"Well, his sister dined with me last n-night——"

Eric stopped as he caught himself stammering, but Barbara laid her hand imploringly on his arm.

"Go on!" she cried. "I can stand it!"

"They don't know whether he's alive or dead." Her hands were slowly withdrawn from her cheeks, her face regained its composure, and she resettled herself, still breathing a little quickly, on the sofa. "They know nothing," he went on slowly. "But there's reason to suppose that he wasn't killed at the time when he was reported missing. There's reason to suppose that he was alive at the beginning of October."

Still standing with his shoulders leaning against the mantel-piece, Eric told her slowly and colourlessly of the belated cheque. At the end she sat watching him in silence. She too, surely, was trying to convince herself that this was what she had always expected.…

"That's all I know. That's all his people know," he added.

"But October.… June.… Why hasn't he written?"

"You're assuming he's alive. We don't know. He may have been badly wounded, he may have died of wounds——"

"But if he was well enough to write a cheque?"

"I don't pretend to explain it. His sister threshed it all out at the bank yesterday; she and I threshed it all out again last night. And we're none the wiser—except that on the ninth of October he drew, dated and signed a cheque. I think that's certain. There's no doubt about the signature, and no one would trouble to forge a cheque for ten pounds.… I always promised to let you know as soon as I had any news, Babs."

She nodded and pressed her knuckles into her eyes.

"October to June…instead of August to June," she murmured at length. "And not a word of any kind. What do his people…?"

"He'll now be published as 'Previously reported missing, now reported to be missing and a prisoner.' They don't know what to think any more than we do."

She sighed and then looked up to him with a grateful smile.

"Thank you for telling me, Eric."

He turned away and moistened his lips.

"You mustn't forget that it affects my own position," he warned her.

The smile faded from her face, and she looked at him with startled eyes.

4

It was a silent dinner, for Eric was exhausted and Barbara was thinking deeply. Nearly a year ago, when Jack was first missing, she seemed to have lived through all these emotions, to have been tossed backwards and forwards in her dreams like a plaything of the gods at sport. For twelve months she had been sick with longing to know whether he still wanted her; and, when the gods had tortured her to madness, they let her think that the cruel game was over. She dreamed again of happiness, seeing herself as a child; another child, the very symbol of love and forgiveness, came to bring her peace, and they played together in the sun-drenched loveliness of a dream. Then the gods flung a shadow before her feet. In dream after dream her child-lover begged her to stay, but the shadow parted them and urged her forward. In time she realized that it was Jack's shadow.…

Never were dreams more vivid. She knew each note of her lover's voice as he begged her to stay and let him make her happy; and night after night she awoke to find herself stifling in the embrace of the shadow. Every one thought that she was dying; she herself knew that she was being driven mad; and, when the gods saw that she could bear no more, they filled the world with a blaze of light which banished dream and shadow.

"I hoped God had forgotten me," she whispered. "I've been happy too long. What am I to do, Eric?"

"You must follow your inclination."

She sighed and looked away into the shadows beyond the table.

"My inclination's always to do what you want.… I'm glad for both our sakes that this came when it did. I couldn't have made you happy while I was uncertain.…"

"And, if the war ended to-morrow and Jack came back safe and sound next week, what then?"

"It depends on him. I gave him my solemn promise, when I was trying to make reparation."

"And I don't count at all. After all our love, you could forget me——"

"I could never forget you, sweetheart."

"But—you're willing to try?"

"What else can I do? Oh, what a muddle I've made of our lives!"

Eric had determined to be patient and restrained; but his voice, uncontrolled and scornful, seemed to come from a distance.

"Will you make it any better by keeping faith with Jack and breaking it with me? You'll be unhappy all your life, you'll never forgive yourself, you'll never forget the wrong you've done me, if you marry any one else!"

Barbara's eyes filled with fear.

"You speak as if you were putting a curse on me!"

"I don't believe in curses or blessings or luck or your other superstitions. I'm warning you—and I'll add this. You once undertook my education, but I think I can teach you one thing, one thing about love: it has to be whole-hearted.…"

He flung away and stood with his arm on the mantel-piece, fumbling the lock of a cigar-cabinet with clumsy fingers. Barbara made no sound, and after some moments he stole a look at her.

"I know," she answered quietly.

"Well——" He hesitated and then took his plunge. "You've got to decide, Babs."

"You must wait till we've heard something definite."

"No! If we heard to-morrow, to-night, in five minutes' time, it would make no difference. I want the whole of your love, I want to stand first." He waited, but she said nothing. "You've very often told me how much you loved me," he went on, ironical at her silence. "You've told me how you need me, how grateful you are to me, how much you want to make me happy——"

He had dropped into unconscious parody, and its technical excellence set her writhing.

"Don't, Eric! Please!"

"You must decide, Babs."

"No!"

She buried her face in her hands and sobbed so wildly that he expected at any moment to see his maid's head at the door. For a while he was stoically unmoved; then the crying gave him a pain at the heart, and he stepped forward, only to pull up before he threw away his victory.

"Eric, don't," she cried, as soon as she had mastery of her voice.

"You must decide," he repeated.

"And if I say 'no'?"

"I've said you were under no obligation to me."

"But—you'll turn me away? If I came to you to-morrow and said I'd changed my mind——"

"It would be too late."

She steadied herself and turned round, bending for her gloves and then drawing herself upright to face him.

"I…can't…now, Eric.… Is it still raining? If it is, I'd better have a taxi."

"I'll see if I can get you one."

He had seen this gesture before; and Barbara had followed it with a stream of notes and messages; begging him to come back. Eric walked slowly into the street, giving her generous time for consideration. A taxi stood idle at the top of St. James' Street; and, when he returned with it, she was in the hall, white-faced but collected, turning over the pages of a review.

"Good-bye, Eric," she said quietly. "I'm afraid I've only brought you unhappiness. And my love doesn't seem much use to any one.… Don't bother to come down with me."

He went into the smoking-room and dropped limply onto a sofa, waiting for the telephone to ring, waiting for her to confess defeat. A hideous evening—almost as bad as that night before Christmas. His cheeks were burning, and his head ached savagely. Suddenly his theatrical composure and stoicism left him; his body trembled, and he was amazed to feel tears coursing down his cheeks. This, then—he was quite detached about it—was the nervous break-down which Gaisford had prophesied. He had not cried for twenty years…and now he could not stop. His heart seemed to have broken loose and to be hammering in space, like the engine of a disabled clock-work toy.

It was still absurdly early, for their scene had taken place among the nut-shells and coffee-cups of dinner. There was time for her to come back, to telephone; she knew by harrowing experience what a parting like this meant. And, while he waited, he must do something! Perhaps she would not break silence till the morning. He would see that she did not wait longer than that.…

"Darling Babs," he began. A hot tear splashed on to the paper, and he reached for a fresh sheet. "Darling Babs, It was your choice. I pray God that you will find greater happiness elsewhere.…"

He strung sentence to sentence, not knowing what he wrote. Was it not weakness that he should be writing the first letter? But Barbara was probably writing to him at this moment, writing or asking for his number.… The night lift-man was bribed to post the letter, because Eric dared not leave the telephone. He sat by it trembling as though with fever, while eleven o'clock struck…and midnight…and one … and three…and five.…

In the morning he was called at his usual time—to sink back on to the bed almost before he had risen from it. While he waited for his secretary, he telephoned to ask a colleague to shoulder double work for the day and began to think wearily what other engagements he must break. In an interlude of their over-night discussion Barbara had asked him to lunch with her.…

With a strangely uncontrolled hand he wrote—"I'm afraid I can't remember what I said in my letter last night. I was feeling too much upset. Didn't you ask me to lunch with you to-day? I'm afraid I'm feeling so ill that I've had to stay in bed.…"

When his secretary arrived, he sent her to Berkeley Square with the note. While she was gone, his parlour-maid came in with a swaying mass of White Enchantress carnations and a pencilled note. "May God make you happier than I've been able to do!"

Eric tried to divert his thoughts from the note by giving elaborate instructions about the flowers and his meals for the day. Before he had done, his secretary returned, and he was still dictating when a sound in the hall froze his voice and set his heart thumping.

"I hear Mr. Lane's not well. Do you think he could see me for a moment?"

"I'll enquire, my lady."

As Barbara came into the room, Eric saw that her face was grey with suffering and that she seemed hardly able to keep her heavy lids open.

"Eric, what's the matter?" she asked, coming to his bedside.

In trying to speak softly her voice, already hoarse, disappeared altogether and she rubbed her throat wonderingly.

"What's the matter with us both?" he asked weakly. "Babs…" His voice broke. "You look like death!"

Before she turned her face, he could see that she was biting her lip.

"Hush, darling child! I'm only tired; I didn't sleep very well. I kept on remembering that I'd lost some one I loved better than any one in the world," she cried tremulously.

He raised himself on his pillows, stretching out hands that twitched.

"You haven't, Babs! If you want me——"

"Not at that price, darling. If my love for you were everything—there's something else. I don't know what it is.… But I've not come to upset you again. Last night I told you that I'd come to you from the ends of the world, if you were ill. Tell me what's the matter, Eric."

She pulled a chair to the bed and gave him her hand, which he covered with kisses.

"I'm broken up! I'm sorry; you can despise me, if you like," he cried. "I can't afford to lose you, Babs: I love you too much."

The tears were standing in his eyes, and the sight steadied her. Pillowing his head on her breast, she ran her fingers through his hair, caressing and soothing him like a child.

"I've done this.… You must forgive me, Eric," she whispered. "I didn't see what I was doing; until quite lately I didn't see that you cared for me at all—not to matter, I mean—you were always sweet to me, of course. If I'd known how I was hurting you…Won't you wait, Eric? I must let you go now, if you insist; I'm nerved up to it.… But is it worth it?"

Eric thought over the change that had come upon them since Christmas.

"No. I can't afford it," he answered wearily.

She bent down and kissed his forehead. Was the kiss rather mechanical? Eric lay with his eyes shut, trying to analyze the double change. Was a nervous break-down always like this? Barbara was stroking his head gently; she had kissed him compassionately, lovingly, but he had fancied a change in her, as though she, too, realized the completeness of his subjugation.

"See if you can't sleep, Eric," she whispered, as he opened twitching lids to take stock of her.

Pity, or some kind of maternal love, then, survived his defeat.…

"Average man is a match for average woman, eighteen chances to eighteen, but zero always turns up in woman's favour. Man, being a philosopher and far less interested in woman (who is an incident) than woman is interested in him (who is her life), would cheerfully go on playing with the odds always slightly against him, if he had a clear idea of the value and significance of zero. But zero is woman inexplicable—something fantastically loyal or shiveringly perfidious, savagely cruel or quixotically self-sacrificing, something that is primitive, non-moral and resolved to win at all costs. In the sex-gamble, zero is more than a thirty-six to one chance; it is Poushkin's Dame de Pique and turns up thirty-six times to one. And man shews his indifference or his greatness of soul by continuing to play, by rising imperturbably triumphant over zero.… Or perhaps he shews that he is an eternal sex-amateur.…"—From the Diary of Eric Lane.