“I beg your pardon!”

Instinctively Cara apologised, although actually the collision had been no fault of hers. The man with whom she had collided had been striding along with bent head, completely absorbed in his own thoughts, and had awakened too late to the fact that some one was coming towards him along the narrow bridle-path through the woods. He lifted his hat mechanically and murmured some sort of apology, but his eyes remained blank and seemed to look through and beyond the woman into whom he had just cannoned without seeing her—certainly without recognising her.

Cara was startled by their expression of strain. They seemed to glare with a hard, unnatural brilliance, as though the man’s vision were focused upon some terrible inner presentment. She laid a detaining hand on his sleeve, but he appeared quite unconscious of her touch and she gave his arm a little shake.

“Eliot!” she said quickly. “Eliot! Are you trying to cut me?”

As though by an immense effort he seemed to come back to the consciousness of his material environment.

“To cut you?” he repeated dully. He brushed his hand across his forehead. “No, of course I wasn’t trying to cut you.”

He looked shockingly ill. His face was grey and lined, and his shoulders sagged as though he were physically played out. The boots and leggings he wore were caked with mud, and his coat had little torn ends of wool sticking up over it, as if he had been walking blindly ahead, careless of direction, and had forced his way through thickets of bramble rather than turn aside to seek an easier path.

“What have you been doing with yourself?” she asked rather breathlessly. In every nerve of her she felt that something terrible had happened. “You look”—trying to summon up a smile—“as if you’d been having a battle.”

“I’ve been walking.”

“Far?”

He gave a sudden laugh.

“To hell and back. I don’t know the mileage.”

“Eliot, what do you mean?”

He looked down at her, and now that dreadful glare which had so frightened her had gone out of his eyes. They were human once more, but the naked misery in them shocked her into momentary silence. She would have liked to run away—to escape from those eyes. They were the windows of a soul enduring torture that was almost too intolerable to be borne. It was only by a strong effort of will that she at last forced her voice to do her bidding.

“What has happened, Eliot?” she said, speaking very gently. “Can’t you tell me?”

He stared at her a moment. Then:

“Why, yes,” he said. “I think I could tell you—part of it. It might amuse you. I’ve found you were not the only woman in the world who counts the shekels. You wouldn’t marry me because I was poor. Now another woman is ready to marry me just because I’m rich. There’s only one drawback.”

“Drawback?”

“Yes. Quite a drawback. You see, it doesn’t appeal to me to be married because I’ve a decent income, any more than it appealed to me ten years ago to be turned, down for the opposite reason.”

Cara shrank from this bitter reference to the past.

“You can be very cruel, Eliot,” she said unsteadily.

“Cruelty breeds cruelty,” he replied with indifference. “Still, I’m beginning to think I was too hard on you, Cara, in the past. It seems finance plays an amazingly strong hand in the game of love. But it’s taken two women to teach me the lesson thoroughly”—with a short laugh.

“Two?”

“You—and Ann.”

“Ann! I don’t believe it!” The words burst from her with impulsive vehemence.

His face darkened.

“While I can believe no other. In fact”—heavily—“your poor little sin shows white as driven snow beside—hers.”

“You’re wrong. I’m sure you’re wrong,” insisted Cara. “I don’t know why you believe what you do—nor all that you believe. I don’t ask to know. It wouldn’t make any difference if you told me. I know Ann. And however black things looked against her, nothing would ever make me believe she was anything but dead straight.”

“Most touching faith!” jeered Eliot. “Unfortunately, I have a preference in favour of believing the evidence of my own senses.”

She drew nearer to him, her hands pressed tightly together.

“Eliot, you’re deliberately going to throw away your happiness if you distrust Ann,” she urged, beseechingly, “I’ve told you, she’s not like me. She’s different.”

“She’s no better and no worse than other women, I suppose,” he returned implacably. “Ready to take whatever goods the gods provide—and then go on to the next.”

Cara turned aside in despair. She could not tell—could not guess—what had happened. She only knew that the man whose happiness meant more to her than her own, and the woman she had learned to love as a friend, had somehow come to irretrievable misunderstanding and disaster. At last she turned back again to Eliot.

“Would you have believed this of her—whatever it is you do believe—if it had not been for me?”

He reflected a moment.

“Perhaps not,” he said.

She uttered a cry that was half a sob. So the price of that one terrible mistake she had made was not yet paid! Fate would go on exacting the penalty for ever—first the destruction of her own happiness, then that of Eliot and of Ann. All must be hurled into the bottomless well of expiation. There was no forgiveness of sins.

It was useless to plead with Eliot—to reason with him. It was she herself who had poisoned the very springs of life for him, and now she was powerless to cleanse them. With a gesture of utter hopelessness she turned and left him, and made her way despondently homeward through the gathering dusk.

She reached the Priory just in time to encounter Robin coming out of the gates. He sprang off his horse and greeted her delightedly.

“I came over to bring you a brace of pheasants,” he explained. “As you were out, I deposited them in the care of your parlourmaid.”

Cara thanked him cordially, and then, as he still lingered, she added:

“Won’t you turn back and come in for a cup of tea? Have you time?”

“I should think I have!” The mercurial rise in Robin’s spirits betrayed itself in the tones of his voice. “I was hoping for an invitation to tea—so you can imagine my disappointment when I found that you weren’t home.”

She laughed, and they walked up to the house together, Robin leading his horse. A cheery fire burned on the hearth in the square, old-fashioned hall which Cara had converted into a living-room. As they entered she switched on the lights, revealing panelled walls, thick dim-hued rugs breaking an expanse of polished floor, and, by the fire, big, cushioned easy chairs which seemed to cry aloud for some one to rest weary limbs in their soft, capacious embrace.

“Ann’s always envious of your electric light,” remarked Robin. “Being only cottage folk”—smiling—“we have to content ourselves with lamps, and they seem prone to do appalling things in the way of smoking and covering the whole room with greasy soot the moment you take your eye off them.”

“I know. They’re a frightful nuisance,” said Cara, ringing the bell for tea. “But lamp-light is the most becoming form of illumination, you know—especially when you’re getting on in years, like me!”

Robin helped her off with her coat, lingering a little over the process, and gazed down at her with adoring eyes.

“Don’t—talk—rubbish!” he said, softly and emphatically.

Perhaps he might have gone on to say something more, but at that moment a trim parlourmaid came in and began to arrange the tea-table beside her mistress’s chair, and for some time afterwards Cara skilfully contrived to keep the conversation on impersonal lines. It was not until tea was over that Robin suddenly struck a more intimate note again. He had been watching her face in silence for a little while, noticing that it looked very small and pale to-day in its frame of night-dark hair, and that there were faint, purplish shadows beneath her eyes.

“You look awfully tired!” he remarked with concern. “And sad,” he added. “Is anything bothering you?”

She was silent for a moment, staring into the heart of the fire where the red and blue flames played flickeringly over the logs.

“I’ve been taking a look into the past,” she said, at last, “It’s—it’s rather a dreary occupation.”

“I know,” he said quietly. “I know.” Ignorant of that earlier past of hers, in which Eliot Coventry had played a part, he was thinking only of her unhappy married life, about which he had gathered a good deal from other people and a little—a very little—from Cara herself. But even that little had let in far more light than she had imagined. Robin’s insight was extraordinarily quick and keen, and a phrase dropped here or there, even her very silences at times, had enabled him to make a pretty good conjecture as to the kind of martyrdom she had suffered. It made his blood boil to think of the mental—and even physical—suffering she must have endured, tied to the brute and drunken bully which it was common knowledge Dene Hilyard had been.

“Don’t you think,” he went on gently, “that you could try to forget it, Cara? Don’t dwell on the past. Think of the future.”

“I’m afraid that’s rather dreary, too,” she answered, with a sad little smile. “It’s just... going on living... and remembering.”

He leaned over her and suddenly she felt the eager touch of his hand on hers.

“It needn’t be that, Cara,” he said swiftly. “It needn’t be that.” She looked up at him with startled eyes. Her thoughts had been so far away, bridging the gulf between to-day and long-dead yesterday, that she had almost to wrench them back to the present. And now here was Robin, with a new light in his eyes and a new, passionate note in his voice. “Cara—darling—”

With a sudden realisation of what was coming, she drew her hand quickly away from him.

“No—no, Robin—” she began.

But he would not listen.

“Don’t say ‘no’ yet. Hear me out!” he exclaimed. “I love you. But I don’t suppose—I’m not conceited enough to suppose that you love me—yet. Only let me try—let me try to teach you to love me! Don’t judge all men by one. You’ve had a ghastly time. Let me try—some day—to make you happier.”

He was so eager, so humble, so entirely selfless in his devotion, thinking only of her, that she was touched inexpressibly—tempted, even. Ah! If she could only put all the past aside, out of sight, and take this love that Robin offered her and hold it round her like a garment shielding her from the icy blasts of life! But she had nothing to give in return for this splendid, brave first love he was offering her. She must play fair. She dare not take where she could not give. Very gently she put him from her.

“You don’t understand,” she said. “You don’t understand. Robin, I wish—I wish I could say ‘yes.’ But I can’t. It isn’t—Dene—who stands between us. I’m not a coward—I’d take my chance again if I could love again—”

“But you never loved him? You couldn’t have loved him!” he protested incredulously.

“My husband? No. But—I loved some one once. And I threw away my happiness—to marry Dene. Oh, it was years ago, Robin—” She broke off and lifted her eyes appealingly to his face. “Must I go on? That’s—that’s really all there is to tell you. Only don’t you see—I—I can’t marry you.”

“No, I don’t see—yet,” returned Robin stoutly, though her words had dashed the quick, eager look of hope from his face. “This—this other man, the one you cared for—is he coming back to marry you?”

“Coming back? No!” For once the sweet voice was hard—bitterly hard. “He has gone out of my life for ever.”

A look of relief came into his eyes. He took her hands into his and held them very gently.

“Then in that case,” he said, “there’s still a chance for me. Not now—not yet. I wouldn’t try to hurry you. But you’ll let me go on loving you, Cara—after all, you can’t stop my doing that!”—with a crooked little smile. “And some day, perhaps, you’ll come to me and let me try and make you happier again. I think I could do that, you know.”

“Ah, no, Robin! I couldn’t come to you—not like that. I couldn’t take all your love—and only give you second best in return. It wouldn’t be fair.”

He laughed a little.

“I think ‘fairness’ just doesn’t come into love at all,” he said, with a great tenderness. “One just loves. And I’d be very glad to take that ‘second best’—if you’ll give it to me, Cara. Oh, my dear, if you only knew, if you only understood! A man can do so much for a woman when he loves her—he can serve her and protect her, and take all the difficult tasks away from her and leave her only the easy ones—the little, pretty, beautiful things, you know. He can stand between her and the prickles and sharp swords of life—and there are such a lot of prickles, and sometimes a terribly sharp sword.... I want to do all these things for you, Cara.”

She shook her head silently. For a moment she could not find her voice. She was too unused to tenderness—out of practice in all the sweet ways of being cared for.

“No—no, Robin,” she said at last. “I’m grateful—I shall always be grateful, and—and happier, I think, because you’ve said these things to me—because you’ve thought of me that way. But you must keep them—keep them for some nice girl who hasn’t wasted all her youth and lost her beliefs—who can give you something better than a bundle of regrets and a second-hand love. You’ll—you’ll meet her some day, Robin. And then you’ll be glad that I didn’t take you at your word.”

But Robin appeared quite unimpressed.

“No, I shan’t. I don’t want any ‘nice girl,’ thank you,” he returned, and his head went up a little. “If I can’t have you, no one else is going to take your place. But I shall never give up hope until you’ve actually married some other man. And meanwhile”—smiling a little—“I shall propose to you regularly and systematically, till you give me a different answer. I suppose”—tentatively—“you couldn’t give it to-day?”

Cara pushed him gently away from her, but she did not withdraw her hands from the strong, kind, comfortable clasp in which he held them.

“Oh, Robin, you’re ridiculous!” she said, a little break in her voice. “I’m speaking for your own good—really I am.”

“And I think I’m the best judge of that,” he answered, regarding her with a quiet humour in his eyes. “But I won’t bother you any more to-night,” he went on. “Only I shall come back.” He lifted the hands he held and kissed them—kissed them with a kind of reverence that made of the slight action an act of homage. “I shall come back,” he repeated, his eyes looking straight into hers.

Then, with a sudden reversion to the commonplace and everyday, he glanced at the clock.

“I must be off!” he exclaimed. “Ann will be wondering what has become of me—and, as soon as she’s quite sure I’m safe and sound, she’ll give me a scolding for being late for dinner,” he added, laughing.

Ann! Cara was conscious of an overwhelming rush of self-reproach. Ann miserable—and alone. And she had been keeping Robin here with her—or, at least, had let him stay. Should she warn him? Prepare him? She hesitated. But her hesitation was only momentary. Whatever had occurred betwixt Ann and the man who loved her, it was Ann’s secret, and she alone had the right to decide whether Robin should be admitted into it or not. But he must go home—now, at once!

“Why, yes,” she said urgently. “You must hurry back, Robin. Ann may be—feeling lonely.”

Half an hour later Robin strode into the living-room at the Cottage to find Ann sitting by the window, curiously still, and staring out impassively into the dusk with blank, unseeing eyes. At sight of her—white and motionless as a statue—a queer sense of foreboding woke in him, and he stepped quickly to her side.

“Ann!” he exclaimed. “Ann, what is it?”

She remained quite still, as if she did not hear him. He touched her shoulder.

“What is it, Ann?” he repeated urgently.

At the touch of his hand she glanced stupidly towards him. Then, shivering a little as though suddenly cold, she got up stiffly out of her chair. But still she did not speak. Robin slipped his arm round her.

“Ann—dear old thing, tell me. What’s happened?” he entreated.

At last she answered him.

“Nothing much,” she said. “Oh, nothing at all, really.” She gave a funny little cracked laugh. “Only—I’m not—engaged any longer.... I told you I was ‘fey’ last night.”

Almost before she had finished speaking, he felt her slight young body suddenly become a dead weight on his arm. She crumpled up against him, and sank into the blessed oblivion of unconsciousness.

The following morning two rather strained young faces confronted each other across the Cottage breakfast table. After Ann had recovered consciousness the previous evening, she had confided to Robin something of what had taken place during the interview between herself and Eliot. He had vainly tried to dissuade her, urging that she was too tired to talk and had much better go to bed and rest.

“I’d rather tell you now—to-night,” she had insisted. “Then we need never speak of it again. And there’s very little to tell. Eliot has broken off his engagement with me because he thinks I’ve deceived him.”

Robin’s anger had been deep but inarticulate. When he spoke again it was reassuringly, soothingly. All else he had kept back.

“You deceive him—or any one! If he thinks that, then he doesn’t know you at all, little sister. And what’s more, if he can think that of you, he isn’t good enough for you.”

“The trouble is”—with a pale little smile—“that he thinks I’m not—good enough—for him.”

She would give no reply to Robin’s impetuous demand for an explanation.

“No, dear old boy, don’t ask me,” she had said painfully. “It—it doesn’t bear talking about. He just doesn’t think me good enough. That’s all.”

But the following morning, when he asked her if she would like to leave Silverquay, a look of intense relief overspread her face.

“Would it be possible?” she asked on a low, breathless; note of eagerness. Then her face fell. “Oh, but we can’t think of it! It’s much too good a post for you to throw up.”

Robin made no answer. But in his own mind he resolved that, if it were possible, he would find some other post—one which, while it would not take him entirely out of reach of the Priory, would yet spare Ann the necessity of ever again meeting Eliot Coventry, or of feeling that they were dependent for their livelihood on the man who, he was instinctively aware, had hurt her in some deep, inmost sanctuary of her womanhood—hurt her so unbearably that she could not bring herself to speak of it.

He rode across to Heronsmere as soon as breakfast was over, and it did not require a second glance at Eliot’s haggard face to tell him that Ann was not alone in her intensity of suffering. He was appalled at the change which two days had worked in the man before him, and for an instant sheer pity almost quenched the burning intention of his errand.

“You wanted to see me, Lovell?”

As Eliot turned the grey mask of his face towards him, Robin mentally visioned Ann’s own face as he had last seen it, and his heart hardened.

“Yes,” he said, speaking rather jerkily. “I want to resign my post as your agent.”

A momentary change of expression showed itself on Eliot’s face, fleeting as the passage of a shadow across a pool.

“To resign?” he repeated mechanically.

“As soon as you can find some one to take my place.”

Coventry remained silent, his fingers trifling absently with a small silver calendar that stood on his desk, pushing it backwards and forwards.

“That’s rather a strange request,” he said at last.

“I don’t think so,” answered Robin, quietly, looking at him very directly.

He returned the glance with grave eyes.

“I suppose I understand what you mean,” he said slowly.

“I suppose you do,” returned Robin bluntly. “But we needn’t speak of that. I came merely to ask you to accept my resignation.”

Again Eliot made no immediate response. He was trying to realise it—to visualise the Cottage empty, or occupied by some one who was no more than an ordinary estate agent—just his man of business. To conceive Silverquay void of Ann’s presence, know her no longer there, be ignorant of where she was in the big world ... whether well or ill.... He found that the bare idea wrought an exquisite agony within him. It was like probing a raw wound.

“No!” He spoke very suddenly, his voice so harsh that it seemed to grate on the quiet of the room. “No. You can’t leave, Lovell. Our arrangement was six months’ notice on either side. I claim that notice.”

Robin drew a deep breath.

“I hoped you would consent to waive it,” he said.

“I don’t consent. I claim it”—decisively. “You can’t leave under six months.” Coventry rose from his chair as though to indicate that the interview was at an end, hesitated a moment, then added abruptly: “I’m going abroad. I must have some one in charge whom I can trust. I shall be leaving England to-morrow.”