The ball-room at White Windows was all in readiness for the forthcoming dance. The floor, waxed and polished till it was as smooth as a sheet of gleaming ice, caught and held the tremulous reflections of a hundred flickering lights, whilst from above, where the orchestra was snugly tucked away in the gallery behind a bank of flowers, came faint pizzicato sounds of fiddles tuning up, alternating with an occasional little flourish or tentative roulade of notes.

The dance was not timed to begin for half an hour or more, but the members of the house-party had congregated together at the upper end of the room and were chatting desultorily. Sir Philip Brabazon and Tony were included amongst them, in addition to a couple of pretty girls, nieces of Lady Susan, and three or four stray men who had been invited down to swell the ranks.

“And how’s Ann?” demanded Sir Philip of his hostess.

“Ann? Oh, you’ll find her a trifle thinner, I think, that’s all,” responded Lady Susan discreetly. To her own eyes Ann seemed to have altered wofully in the course of the last few months, but she reasoned that Sir Philip was no more observant than the majority of men and that if she prepared him for the fact that Ann was somewhat thinner than of old he would accept the change quite naturally and not worry the girl herself with tiresome questions as to the cause of such a falling off.

It had been a very difficult winter, but Lady Susan had the satisfaction of knowing that she and the rector between them had triumphantly routed Ann’s detractors, and although it was well-nigh impossible to utterly stamp out of a country district such as Silverquay the hydra-headed monster called scandal, they had certainly succeeded in drawing his fangs. But if Lady Susan had been successful in her campaign against the tittle-tattle of the neighbourhood, she had been powerless to restore that sheer joy and happiness in living which had been so peculiarly Ann’s gift until the day when Eliot Coventry went out of her life, taking from her, as he went, everything except the courage to endure.

Lady Susan had never forgiven Brett for his share in the work of destroying Ann’s happiness, and she chafed bitterly against her own inability to help matters. It was only through the merest accident that she had at last seen the possibility of being of service. She had been up in town a few days prior to the date fixed for the dance and had encountered Tony shopping in the Army and Navy Stores. He happened to mention that he had run across Coventry at Mentone, and a chance remark elicited the fact that he had regaled him with the history of the Dents de Loup adventure.

Perhaps Lady Susan’s face had expressed more than she knew, for Tony, perceiving that she attached some special importance to the matter, looked suddenly anxious.

“I say, I’ve not been giving Ann away, have I?” he demanded in honest consternation. “I made sure she’d told you all about it by this time. I never thought—”

“Don’t worry,” Lady Susan reassured him hastily. “You’re not giving her away. She did tell me—all about it.”

When she returned home she had taken her courage in both hands and written to Eliot asking him to come back. And to-night, doubtful whether her letter had reached him in time to allow of his returning for the dance, totally ignorant of the reception it would receive, and uncertain even as to how Ann would welcome him if he actually did return, she was on tenterhooks of nervousness and anxiety.

“You do grow thinner in the winter, you know,” she continued airily to Sir Philip, unwisely elaborating her comment upon Ann’s appearance.

“You don’t,” contradicted the old man with his usual acerbity. “You grow fatter if you’ve any sense—to keep the cold out.” He glared at her, then demanded abruptly: “How do you think Tony’s looking?”

Lady Susan’s dark eyes rested thoughtfully a moment on Tony’s face before she answered.

“Not too well,” she admitted. “He looks a little strained and keyed up. Have you been bullying him, Philip?”

“Not more than usual”—grimly. “I’ve told him I’ll pay no more debts for him. And a good thing, too! I fancy he’s been keeping within his allowance since I put my foot down. Anyhow, he hasn’t come to me again, begging for money.” He paused and shot a swift glance of inquiry at her, obviously seeking her approval, but Lady Susan preserved a strictly non-committal silence. She thought Tony exhibited decided symptoms of nervous strain. His eyes were restless, and his mouth wore a dissatisfied, thwarted expression.

“It’s love,” pursued Sir Philip, as she made no response. “That’s what’s the matter with the boy. He doesn’t know; whether he’s on his head or his heels.”

“Love?”

“Yes. He’s in love with that slip of a Doreen Neville. And because I brought him back to Audley Square instead of careering all over Europe after her and her mother he’s as sulky as a young bear.”

“Doreen Neville?” Lady Susan felt that her replies were hopelessly inadequate, but she was too genuinely taken aback by the news to think of anything to say.

“I said so, didn’t I?”—crustily. “I suppose I shall have to let him marry her in the end. She’s all right, of course, as regards family. But a bit of a swear-stick—melt in a storm, probably. Confound the boy!”—irritably. “Why couldn’t he have remained in love with Ann?”

“I’m very glad he didn’t,” returned Lady Susan quietly. “It was only calf-love. Besides, he would have leant on Ann—she’s such a stalwart little soldier, you know”—with a smile.

Sir Philip nodded.

“Yes. She’d have kept him straight,” he said gloomily. “Whereas Doreen Neville’s the hot-house plant type—just the opposite. No good to Tony at all.”

“I’m not so sure, Philip. Sometimes the need to care for and protect some one weaker than himself helps to steady a man down more than anything else. Ah!” Lady Susan broke off, her face brightening. “Here is Ann—with Robin. I told them to come early.”

Sir Philip put up his monocle and glared in the direction of the new-comers. Yes, Ann was certainly thinner—too thin, perhaps—though, as far as appearances were concerned, he thought the change had only served to accentuate the charming angles of her face and give an additional grace to the boyishly slender lines of her figure.

Any one less like a love-lorn maiden than Ann looked at that moment could hardly be imagined. She was wearing a charming frock the colour of a pool of deep green sea-water, with a handful of orange-golden poppies clustered at the waist, and as the lights flickered over her, from the swathed gold-brown of her hair to the tips of her small gold shoes, she was as detail-perfect as a woman who hadn’t a single care in life. The simple, appealing black frock generally adopted by the heroine in fiction who has been crossed in love did not allure Ann in the very least. Whatever happened to her, she would always confront the world with a brave face. And even if her small, individual barque of life were hopelessly foundered she would at least go down with colours flying.

Nevertheless, to the discerning eye the alteration in her was very palpable. In repose her mouth fell into lines of quiet endurance, and her eyes held a look of deep sadness. But, fortunately for most of us, the discerning eye is a rarity, and in public Ann rarely allowed herself to lapse into one of those moments of abstracted thought when the unguarded expression of the face gives away the secrets of the heart.

She greeted Sir Philip with all her old gaiety, and, when he told her she was much too thin, laughed at him gently.

“Don’t be a fuss-pot, dear godparent,” she adjured him. “I was never one of the fat kine, and really I’m very glad of it. You can dress ever so much more economically when you’re thin, you know, and that’s quite a consideration these days.”

“Are you—do you mean—look here, Ann,” he floundered awkwardly. “Are you hard up?”

She laughed outright.

“No, of course not. Robin gets a topping good screw, and I’m doing quite a millionaire business in the poultry line.”

“Humph!” Sir Philip grunted. “Got any clothes fit for London?”

She nodded.

“Lots. Put away where moth and rust shan’t corrupt their morals.”

“Well, get’m out and come up to Audley Square for a bit. You look—I don’t know the word I want—peeked.”

“It’s no use shelving it on to me like that,” said Ann teasingly. “What you really mean is that you and Tony are getting awfully bored with each other alone!”

A smile glimmered in the depths of the fierce old eyes.

“Perhaps that’s it. Will you come?”

“I’d love to. But you may just as well tell me what’s worrying you.”

“You’re an impudent girl! Who said I was worrying?”

“Well—perhaps not worrying. But unsettled in mind,” conceded Ann. “What’s Tony been doing?”—shrewdly.

“Getting engaged—or trying to.”

She laughed.

“Pooh! I guessed that—months ago. And I think Lady Doreen’s a dear. So you’d better be getting out your consent and furbishing it up so as to give it prettily as soon as it’s required. You know you’re pleased—really.”

By this time the guests were arriving, and very soon Ann was swept away from Sir Philip on a tide of eager young men, anxious to inscribe their names on her programme. She was an excellent dancer, but although she was physically too young and healthy not to find a certain enjoyment in the sheer delight of rhythmic motion, she was conscious as the evening progressed of a certain quality of superficiality in the pleasure she experienced. There was a sameness about it all that palled. What was there in it, after all? One of your partners knew a priceless new glide or shuffle which he forthwith imparted to you, or else you initiated him into some step hitherto unfamiliar to him, and after that you both went on one-stepping or fox-trotting round the room in the wake of a number of other people doing likewise.

Ann, in the arms of a tall young officer from the Ferribridge barracks, caught herself up quickly at this stage of her unprofitable train of thought. This was not the first time lately that she had found herself impressed with the utter staleness of things—she who had been wont to find life so full of interest—and she knew that thoughts such as these were best dismissed as soon as possible. They linked up too closely with searing memories. She made a determined effort to steady herself, and pulled herself together so successfully that the young Guardsman from Ferribridge told quite a number of people that Miss Lovell was a “topping little sport all round—good dancer and jolly good fun to talk to.”

She danced several times with Tony, and left him completely nonplussed by her uncanny discernment when, after he had stumbled through the revelation of his engagement to Doreen Neville, during one of the intervals, she promptly told him she had anticipated it long ago and wished him luck.

“And—and you and I?” he had queried with a certain wistful embarrassment.

“Pals, Tony,” she answered frankly. “Same as always. You must let me meet Lady Doreen when she comes back from Switzerland, and”—smiling—“I’ll hand over my charge to her. Have you been good lately, by the way?”

He flushed, and his eyes grew restless.

“I lost a bit at Monte,” he admitted. “I was winning pots of money at first, and then all at once my luck turned and I lost the lot.”

“And more, too, I suppose?” suggested Ann rather wearily.

He nodded.

“I shall get it all back at cards, though,” he assured her.

“Have you got any of it back yet?” she asked pointedly.

“No, But it stands to reason my run of bad luck must turn sooner or later. Come on back to the ball-room and let’s dance this, Ann—don’t lecture me any more, there’s a dear.”

She yielded to those persuasive, long-lashed eyes of his, and they returned to the ball-room and finished the remainder of the dance. But her conversation with Tony had added to the oppression of her spirits. She felt sure, from the way he shirked the subject, that he was getting himself into financial difficulties again, and if the matter came to Sir Philip’s ears she was afraid that this time it might end in an irreparable cleavage between uncle and nephew. The former had paid Tony’s debts so often, and on the last occasion he had warned him very definitely that he would never do so again. And Ann was fain to acknowledge that one could hardly blame the old man if by this time he had really reached the limits of his patience—and his purse.

She was still brooding rather unhappily over Tony’s affairs when Robin came to claim her for a dance. He, too, seemed rather preoccupied and distrait, and as they swung out into the room together Ann cast about in her mind for some explanation of his unwonted gloom. A minute later she caught an illuminating glimpse of Cara, sitting alone by the big fire which still smouldered redly at the far end of the room, and a queer little smile of understanding curved her lips.

“You’ve only danced with Cara once this evening, Robin,” she observed. “Have you been squabbling?”

He laughed.

“Not likely. But Lady Susan caught me and trotted me round for some duty dances, and by the time those were fixed Cara had booked up a lot and we couldn’t make our programmes fit.”

On a quick, sympathetic impulse Ann pulled up near one of the doorways, drawing him aside out of the throng of dancers with a light touch on his arm.

“Then go and ask her for this,” she said hastily. “She’s not dancing it. And I—I’m really rather tired. I’d love a few minutes’ rest.” She gave him a little push, and before he could say yea or nay she had vanished through the doorway, leaving him free to secure at least one more dance with Mrs. Hilyard.

A good many couples were sitting about outside, partaking of ices and other forms of refreshment, and Ann made her way quickly through the hall and bent her steps in the direction of the library where, earlier in the evening, she had caught sight of a cosy fire. As she passed, she heard the ring of a bell, followed by the sound of some late-comer being admitted. She did not see who it was, and with a fleeting thought that whoever had chosen to arrive so late would have small chance of securing good partners, she slipped quietly into the library.

The fire had burnt down and she stirred it into a blaze before she settled herself in a low chair beside it. She was genuinely glad to be alone for a few minutes—glad of the peaceful quiet of the comfortable room with its silent, book-lined walls and padded easy chairs. She had lost the real spirit of enjoyment. Her old-time zest for dancing seemed to have deserted her entirely, and the daily necessity of playing up in public, of pretending to the world at large that all was well with her, was becoming an increasing strain.

In addition to this, she was conscious to-night of a vague sense of regret. In another few weeks the term of Robin’s six months’ notice would have expired and they would both be going away from Silverquay. He had heard of several suitable posts, but so far he had not definitely accepted any one of them. Probably within the next fortnight his decision would be made, and Ann realised that leaving Silverquay would be somewhat of a wrench. She had known both great happiness and great grief there, and a full measure of those unreckoned hours of everyday fun and laughter and enjoyment which we are all prone to accept so easily and without any very great gratitude, only realising for how much they counted when they are suddenly taken from us. But now, as the inevitable day of departure drew nearer, Ann found herself face to face with the fact that, although she might leave Silverquay itself behind, memories both sweet and bitter would forever hold out their hands to her from the little sea-girt village. Sometimes she would not be able to evade them. However fast she might hurry through life, they would reach out and touch her, and she would feel those straining hands against her heart.

And then, across her bitter-sweet musings, came the creak of the door as some one pushed it quietly open, and entered the room.

“Ann!”

At the sound of that voice she felt as though every drop of blood in her body had rushed to her heart and were throbbing there in one great hammering pulse. Her hands gripped the arm of her chair convulsively, and slowly and fearfully she turned her head in the direction whence came the voice. Coventry was standing on the threshold of the room. A strangled cry broke from her, and she sat staring at him with wild, incredulous eyes. For a moment the room seemed to fill with a grey, swirling mist, blurring the outlines of the furniture and the figure of the man who stood there silently in the doorway. Then the mist cleared away, and she could see his eyes bent on her with an expression of such stark bitterness and despair and longing that it hurt her to look at him. Was this her lover—who had left her in such fierce scorn and anger only a few short months ago? This man whose face was worn and ravaged with an intensity of suffering such as she had not dreamed possible! If she had grown thin in paying for that bitter parting, then he must have paid a hundredfold to be so terribly marred and altered.

“Eliot!” The word came stammeringly from her lips—hushed as one hushes the voice only in the presence of a great grief or of death itself. She bent her head, unwilling to look again on that soul’s agony so nakedly revealed.

“Yes. I have come back,” he said tonelessly.

Closing the door behind him, he advanced into the room and came and stood beside her.

“Look up!” he exclaimed suddenly, almost violently. “Lift up your face, and let me see what these months have done to you.”

She lifted her face mechanically, and for a full minute he stood looking down at it, reading it feature by feature, line by line—the proud, weary droop of the mouth, the quiet acceptance of pain which had lain so long in the gold-brown eyes. Then, with a groan he dropped suddenly and knelt beside her, holding his arms close round her, and laid his head against her knees. His face was hidden, and hesitatingly, with a half-shy, half-maternal gesture Ann touched the dark head pressed against her. Moments passed and he neither stirred nor spoke. At last she stooped over him.

“Eliot,” she said quietly, “tell me why you have come back?”

Even then he did not move at once, but at last he raised his head from her knees and met her eyes.

“I’ve come back,” he said slowly, “because, though I’ve doubted you, I can’t live without you. I’ve come back to ask your forgiveness—if it is still possible for you to forgive me.” Then, as she would have spoken, he checked her: “No, don’t decide—don’t say anything yet. Hear what I have to tell you first.”

She yielded to a curious strained insistence in his voice.

“Very well,” she said gently, “you shall tell me just what you will.”

He left his place by her side and went over and stood by the chimneypiece, looking down at her while he spoke, and as she listened it seemed as though all that he had fought against, believed and disbelieved, suffered and endured, was made clear to her in the terse, difficult sentences that fell one by one from his lips.

“You knew that I’d once been deceived by a woman,” he said. “Her name doesn’t matter. She deceived me, and my love for her died—as surely as a man dies if you stab him to the heart. She stabbed my love—and it died, and I swore then that I would give no other woman the power to hurt me as she had hurt me. When I met you I knew, almost at once, that you were a woman whom—if I allowed myself to—I might grow to love. I think it was your sincerity, your transparent honesty that won me. You were all I’d dreamed of in a woman—all that I hadn’t found in that other woman. But I was afraid. So I left Montricheux—went away at once. I didn’t want to care for you. I’d been too badly hit before. Cowardly, you’ll say, perhaps—you were never a coward, were you, Ann? Well, it may have been. Anyhow, I did go away and I tried to forget all about you. It wasn’t easy, God knows, and then, by a trick of fate, I found you again, at my cottage—living there, sister of the man with whom I’d just made a pact. After that it was a struggle between my joy at finding you there and my determination never to let myself care again for any woman.” He paused, but Ann did not speak, and after a minute he went on again:

“Well, you know how it ended. I was beaten. I loved you and I had to tell you so. When I yielded, I yielded entirely—gave you my utter love and faith. I believed in you completely—far more than I knew or even suspected at the time. And then, close on the top of that, I was told the story of how you had stayed at the Dents de Loup with Tony Brabazon. Even then I could hardly credit it. I came and asked you. And you didn’t deny it. It was true. What else could I think? I argued that you had thrown Brabazon over because I was a better ‘catch’ from, a worldly point of view—just as that other woman had thrown me over for a similar reason!—that you’d deliberately deceived me, that you’d been faithless both to Brabazon and to me, as you would be faithless to any other man who loved you.... Remember, it had been your seeming sincerity, your truth, your straightness which had first attracted me. And just as I had loved you for your truth, so then I hated you for your falseness—your unbelievable falseness.... Why didn’t you deny it all, Ann? Explain—clear the mists away from my eyes?”

“I was too proud—and hurt,” she said quiveringly.

“If you’d only stooped to explain—” He broke off, with a savage gesture. “Forgive me! What right have I to reproach or blame you? The whole fault was mine. Well, I believed you as disloyal and disingenuous as I had known you to be loyal and candid. And I went away. I went down into hell. You’ve at least the satisfaction of knowing that I paid for my distrust—paid for it to the last fraction owing—”

“Ah, don’t!” She raised her hand swiftly, imploringly. But he took no notice. He continued doggedly:

“Then, when I thought I had suffered all that a man could be called upon to suffer, I met Tony—Tony over head and ears in love with quite another woman, as unlike you—oh, your very antithesis! He used to talk to me sometimes. God knows I didn’t give him any encouragement! I hated the very sight of him. But he never guessed it. And one day he came and prattled out to me the story of an adventure he had had—at the Dents de Loup—how he got caught up there with a girl. And I knew, then, that it was your adventure, too—though of course he never mentioned your name. But it was as clear as daylight to me. It was as though scales had fallen from my eyes.... I knew then what I’d done. I’d pulled down our house of happiness about our heads. For a time I think I went mad. I could think of nothing except the fact that I’d made it impossible for me ever to come to you again—even to ask your forgiveness.”

He was silent a moment, leaning his arm on the chimney-piece and shading his face with his hand. When he again resumed it was with a palpable effort and his voice roughened.

“Afterwards, when I came to my senses, I saw that I must come to you. I had destroyed my own life—all that was worth while in it. But I had no right to destroy yours. So I’ve come back—to ask your forgiveness, Ann—if you can give it. And by forgiveness”—he eyed her steadily—“I mean all that forgiveness can hold—not just a mere form of words. I want the love I threw away—the right you once gave me to call myself your lover. If you don’t feel you can give it—I shan’t complain. I’ve no right to complain. I shall just go quietly out of your life. But if you can—now you know all—” He broke off. “Ann ... shall I go ... or stay?”

He made an involuntary movement towards her, then, checked himself abruptly and stood looking down at her in silence. From the ball-room there floated out the strains of the latest fox-trot, sounding curiously cheap and tawdry as they cut across the deep, almost solemn intensity that prevailed in the quiet room where a man had just stripped his soul naked to the eyes of the woman he loved and now stood as one awaiting judgment.

Ann remained silent. Speech seemed for a few moments a physical impossibility. She had been touched to the quick. Step by step she had gone with Eliot down into that place of torment where he had been wandering, suffering an agony of pain of which the keenest pang had taken birth in the bitter knowledge that it was of his own making, and in every fibre of her being she ached to give him back all that he had lost—all that he asked for. Ached to give it back to him complete, whole, unharmed—that love which had been his and which he had so piteously thrown away.

And she could not. By no mere shibboleth of words, no waving of a wand, could she restore the past, reconstruct what had been out of what was. Love she could give him in full measure, the same enduring love which would be his for ever, believing or unbelieving, living or dead. And his love she would take again—only she herself knew how gladly! But always their mutual love must lack something—that fine thread of utter faith and trust which he himself had cut asunder. It could be knotted together again, it was true. But one would always feel the knot—know it was there. He believed in her now—because she had been proved innocent. But she would never know if his belief in her would withstand the stress of another such test as the one under which it had gone down. To the end of life there would be a doubt, an unanswered question in her heart, as to whether he really had faith in her or no.

She looked up at last to meet his eyes still fixed intently upon her as he waited for her answer. Her own were rather sad. But her surrender was complete. She held out her hands.

“Stay!” she said.

Yet even as he gathered her into his arms she was vitally, cruelly conscious of the absence of the one thing needful to make perfect their reunion. Not even the swift passion of his kisses could convince her of his faith in her. She was not sure—could never be sure, now.

It would be bound to come between them sometimes—that terrible uncertainty. The grey shadow of distrust which had divided them in the past still followed them from afar—a vague, intangible menace. Would it some day swing forward, like the dark, remorseless finger of an hour-dial, and lie once more impassably between them?