As the clocks were striking ten on the following morning, the morning of Iris Wayne's wedding day, Anstice came slowly down the garden to where his car waited by the gate.

It was a glorious September morning, the whole world bathed in a flood of golden sunshine, and the soft, warm air was heavy with the scent of sweet-peas, of stocks, of the hundred and one fragrant flowers which deck the late summer days. Away over the fields hung an enchanting blue haze which promised yet greater heat when it too should have dissolved before the mellow rays of the sun; and if there be any truth in the old saw that happy is the portion of the bride on whom the sun shall shine, then truly the lot of Iris Wayne should be a happy one.

But in Anstice's face there was no reflected sunshine on this auspicious morning. Rather did he look incredibly haggard and worn, and his colourless lips and purple-shadowed eyes were in strangest contrast to the smiling face of Nature.

It was only by a very strong effort of will that Anstice had driven himself forth to embark upon his day's work. The horrible night through which he had passed had left traces on both body and soul; and the thought of that which was to happen to-day, the thought of the ceremony in the little flower-decked church by which the girl he adored would be given as wife to another man was nothing short of torture to this man who loved her.

He would have given half he possessed to be able to blot out this day from his calendar—to pass the whole of it in a state of oblivion, of forgetfulness, to cheat life of its fiercest suffering for a few hours at least; but Iris herself blocked the way to that last indulgence. She had bidden him remember—for her sake—that the way he had taken was not in truth the way out; and although every nerve in his body cried out for relief, nothing in the world could have persuaded him to mar Iris' wedding-day by an act whose commission would have grieved her had she known of it.

And since to sit at home, brooding over the dimly-remembered events of the preceding night, would be fatal, there was nothing for it but to go out and strive to forget his own mental agony in an attempt to alleviate the physical suffering of those who trusted him to relieve their bodily woes at least.

He was about to enter his car when he heard the hoot of a motor-horn behind him; and turning round, one foot on the step, saw his friendly rival, Dr. Willows, driving up to intercept him.

"Hallo, Anstice, glad you're not out. I wanted to see you."

Anstice moved forward to meet him, but Dr. Willows, an agile little man of middle age, hopped out of his car, and taking Anstice's arm moved with him out of ear-shot of the waiting chauffeur.

"Well?" Anstice's voice was not inviting.

"It's about that affair at Cherry Orchard." Involuntarily Anstice's arm stiffened, and the other man dropped it as he went on speaking. "I was called in last night, and hearing you were ill—by the way, are you better now?" He broke off abruptly and peered into Anstice's face with disconcerting keenness.

"Quite, thanks. It was only a temporary indisposition," returned Anstice coldly; and Dr. Willows relaxed his gaze.

"Glad to hear it—though you look pretty seedy this morning. You know you really work too hard, Anstice. I assure you your predecessor didn't take half the trouble with his patients that you do——"

"You'll excuse me reminding you that I have not begun my round yet." Anstice interrupted him impatiently. "You were saying you were called in to Cherry Orchard——"

"Yes. The little girl was badly burnt—owing to some carelessness on the part of the servants—and since you were not available——"

"Who told you I was not available?" His tone was grim.

"Why, Miss Wayne, of course. You know she and Mr. Cheniston came on to see me after finding you weren't able to go owing to being seedy yourself"—even Anstice's sore spirit could not doubt the little man's absolute ignorance of the nature of his supposed illness—"and they asked me to go in your place. So as it was an urgent case of course I did not hesitate to go."

"Of course not." Anstice strove to speak naturally. "Well, you went?"

"Yes, and treated the child. As you know, she is only a kiddie, and the shock has been as bad as the actual burns, though they are severe enough."

"Have you been there to-day?"

"No—that's what I came to see you about. I stayed pretty late last night, and left the child asleep; but now, of course, you will take over the case. Mrs. Carstairs understood I was only filling your place, you know."

"Do you think"—Anstice hesitated oddly, and Dr. Willows told himself the man looked shockingly ill—"do you think Mrs. Carstairs would prefer you to continue the case?"

"Good Lord, no!" Dr. Willows stared. "Why, what bee have you got in your bonnet now? I told you Mrs. Carstairs knew I was only representing you because you were ill, and couldn't come, and I told her I would run over first thing this morning and see if you were able to take on the case yourself."

"What did Mrs. Carstairs say to that?"

"She agreed, of course. And if I were you"—Dr. Willows felt vaguely uncomfortable as he stood there in the morning sunshine—"I'd go round pretty soon." He looked at his watch ostentatiously. "By Jove, it's after ten—I must get on. Then you'll go round to Cherry Orchard this morning?"

"Yes." Anstice accepted the inevitable. "I'll go round almost immediately. Thanks very much for coming, Willows. I ... I'm grateful to you."

"Oh, that's all right!" Dr. Willows, relieved by the change in Anstice's manner, waved his hand airily and returned to his car; and as soon as he was out of sight Anstice entered his own motor and turned in the direction of Cherry Orchard.

After all, he said to himself as the car glided swiftly over the hard white road, there was no reason why Mrs. Carstairs should find anything suspicious in his inability to visit Cherry Orchard on the previous evening. Doctors were only human after all—prone to the same ills to which other men are subject; and although the exigencies of one of the most exacting professions in the world would seem to inspire a corresponding endurance in its members, there are moments in which even the physician must pause in his ministrations to the world, in order, as it were, to tune up his own bodily frame to meet the demands upon it.

Of course it was possible that Cheniston had divulged to his sister the true reason of Anstice's non-arrival; but Anstice did not think it likely; for although there was, and always must be, a strong antagonism between the two men, Cheniston was an honourable man; and the secret upon which he had stumbled was one which a man of honour would instinctively keep to himself.

That his secret was safe with Iris, Anstice knew beyond any question; and as his car swept up the drive to the jasmine-covered door of Cherry Orchard he told himself that it was only his conscience which made him feel as though his absence on the previous evening must have looked odd, unusual, even—he could not help the word—suspicious.

The door was opened to him by Hagyard, and there was no doubting the sincerity of his welcome.

"Good morning, sir. I was looking out for you.... Miss Cherry's awakened, they say, and is in a sad state."

His unusual loquacity was a proof of his mental disturbance, and Anstice spoke sharply.

"Where is she? Shall I go upstairs?"

"If you please, sir. Here is Tochatti come for you, sir." And he stood aside to allow the woman to approach.

"Will you come this way, signor?" Her foreign accent was more marked than usual; and looking at her worn and sallow countenance Anstice guessed she had not slept.

He followed her without asking any questions, and in another moment was in Cherry's bedroom, the little white and pink room whose wall papers and chintzes were stamped with the life-like bunches of cherries on which he had once remarked admiringly, to the little owner's gratification.

In the small white bed lay Cherry, her head swathed in bandages, one little arm bandaged likewise; and beside her knelt Chloe Carstairs, her face like marble, her silky black hair dishevelled on her brow, as though she, too, had passed a sleepless night. Cherry's brown eyes were widely opened with an expression of half-wondering pain in their usually limpid depths, and from time to time she uttered little moans which sounded doubly piteous coming from so self-controlled a child as she.

"Dr. Anstice—at last!" Chloe rose swiftly from her knees and came to meet him with both hands outstretched. "I thought you were never coming—that Dr. Willows had forgotten to tell you——"

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Carstairs." He knew at once, with a relief which would not be repressed, that Cheniston had kept his miserable secret. "I only saw Dr. Willows half an hour ago, and came at once. How is Cherry this morning—did she have any sleep?"

"Yes, thank God." Listening to her low voice, Anstice wondered why he had ever thought her lacking in affection for her child. "Dr. Willows was most kind—he stayed half the night with us and Cherry slept for some hours after he left. But now she is awake, as you see, and I'm afraid she is suffering horribly."

"Let me see what I can do for her, will you?"

He approached the bed and sat down quietly by it, while Cherry ceased for a second to moan, and her brown eyes besought him, more eloquently than speech, to give her relief from this quite unusual state of affairs. At first he was not certain that the child recognized him; but presently her uninjured hand came gropingly towards him; and as he took the tiny fingers in his own Anstice felt a sudden revival of the energies which had seemed so dead, so burnt-out within him on this beautiful September morning.

"Well, Cherry, this is bad luck, isn't it?" He spoke very gently, studying her little face the while. "But don't lose heart—this pain won't last long, it will soon run away. Is it very bad?"

"It's rather bad, thank you, my dear." Even in the midst of her tribulation Cherry strove heroically for her own gracious tone, and the familiar term of endearment sounded strangely pathetic to-day. "But you'll send it quite 'way, won't you?"

"Yes. I send away all pains," returned Anstice, lying nobly. "But first of all you must let me see just what sort of pain this one is, and then I shall know how to get rid of it. You don't mind me touching you, do you?"

"N-not much, my dear." Cherry's lips quivered, and Chloe Carstairs turned away as though unable to bear the sight of her little daughter's suffering any longer.

Quickly and tenderly Anstice made his examination without disturbing more of the dressings than was absolutely necessary; and by dint of questioning Mrs. Carstairs found that the child's brow had been badly scorched where her brown curls had caught fire, and that one little arm had suffered a grievous burn. These were the only outward signs of the accident, but the child had undergone a severe shock; and Anstice felt a sudden misgiving as he looked at the pinched little face, and noted the renewal of the pitiful moans which even Cherry's fortitude could not altogether repress.

The woman Tochatti had hovered in the background while he bent over the bed; and now, at a sign from him, she came forward silently.

"Just look after the child a moment or two, will you?" he said. "Mrs. Carstairs, may I have a word with you? Oh, don't be alarmed—I only want to hear a little more about the affair."

Tochatti shot a quick look at him from her beady black eyes; and Anstice was momentarily puzzled by her curious expression. She looked almost as though she resented his presence—and yet she should have welcomed him, seeing that he was there to do his best for the child she adored. But as she moved to the side of the bed, and took Cherry's unhurt hand in her own brown fingers with a touch of almost maternal tenderness, he told himself impatiently that he was fanciful; and turned to Mrs. Carstairs with a resolute movement.

"Will you come into my room, Dr. Anstice?" Chloe's spacious bedroom led out of her little daughter's pink and white nest; and as Anstice followed her she pulled the door to with a nervous action curiously unlike herself.

"Dr. Anstice, will she die?" Her lips were ashy, and in her white face only the sapphire eyes seemed alive. "If she dies, I will never forgive Tochatti—never!"

"Tochatti?" Anstice was surprised. "Was she to blame for this?"

"Not altogether." Chloe could be just, it seemed, even in the midst of her sorrow. "I will tell you what happened. As perhaps you know, Cherry was to have been one of Iris Wayne's bridesmaids, and at her own request Tochatti had made her dress, a flimsy little thing all muslin and lace. She had spent days over it—she embroiders wonderfully, and when it was done it was perfectly exquisite. She finished it last evening, and Cherry insisted on a dress rehearsal. She was to pay me a surprise visit in the drawing-room just before dinner, and it seems that when she was quite ready Tochatti slipped downstairs to find Hagyard and admit him to a private view, leaving Cherry alone in the room—against all rules—with two candles burning on the dressing-table."

She paused.

"I think I understand," said Anstice quietly. "Cherry took up a candle to get a better view of her pretty frock, and——"

"Not exactly," Chloe interrupted him. "She leaned forward, it seems, in order to look at herself more closely in the glass—you know children are fond of seeing themselves in pretty clothes—and, as you might imagine, she leaned too close to the candle and her sleeve caught fire."

"She cried out?"

"Yes—luckily we all heard her." Through all her marble pallor Chloe flushed at the remembrance of that poignant moment. "We rushed in and found her shrieking, and Tochatti beat out the flames with her hands."

"With her hands? Is she burnt, too, then?"

"Yes—I believe so." Chloe's tone expressed no pity. "She tied up her hand—the left one—herself, and says it is nothing much."

"I see." Privately Anstice determined to investigate the woman's hurt before he left the house. "Well—and what then?"

"When we got the flames under we found that Cherry had fainted, and we telephoned at once for you." She stopped short, taken aback by the strange expression on his face.

"Yes—and I wish to God I'd heard your call!" Anstice bit his lip savagely; and Chloe, uncomprehending but compassionate, hastened on with her story.

"You couldn't help being ill! Iris told me how your maids were all in the Park watching the fireworks—and then when my brother and Iris came down you were too ill to come. Are you better now?"

"So they went for Willows and brought him back with them?" He disregarded her question—possibly did not hear it.

"Yes, and as I have told you he was most kind. But of course Cherry did not know him, and she kept on crying for you——"

Chloe, who had intended the last words kindly, thinking to please him by this proof of the child's affection for him, was aghast at the result of her speech.

"Mrs. Carstairs, for God's sake don't tell me that!" Anstice's voice almost frightened her, so bitter, so full of remorse was it. "It only wanted that to make the horror complete—the knowledge that I failed a little child in her need!"

"The horror?" She stared at him. "I don't understand."

"No, and there's no reason why you should." With a great effort he resumed his ordinary tone. "Mrs. Carstairs, forgive me. I ... as you know—I was—ill—last night, and I'm not quite myself this morning. But"—he turned the subject resolutely—"what I want to say is this. Cherry will need very careful nursing for some days, and I think it will be well for me to send you a nurse."

Chloe received the suggestion rather dubiously.

"Do you think it is really necessary?" she said at length. "I'm as strong as a horse, and as for Tochatti, I'm afraid she wouldn't like to feel herself superseded. She is devoted to Cherry, you know, and she is a very jealous woman."

"Yes," he said, "but even although you and Tochatti are ready to give yourselves up to the child, in a case of this sort skill is wanted as well as affection." He smiled to soften the harshness of his words, and Chloe inconsequently thought that he looked very weary this morning.

"Of course, and if we don't prove competent you are at liberty to send us a nurse. But"—she spoke rather wistfully—"mayn't we try, Tochatti and I? I would a thousand times sooner nurse Cherry myself than let a stranger be with her."

Touched by something in her voice, remembering also the peculiar position in which this woman stood—a wife without a husband, with no one in the world, apparently, to care for her save her child—Anstice yielded the point for the moment.

"Very well, then. We will try this arrangement first, and if Cherry goes on well there will be no need to call in other help. Now I should like to see Tochatti, and give you both instructions."

Without a word Chloe led him back to the smaller bedroom where Cherry lay uneasily dozing; and Anstice beckoned to Tochatti to approach the window.

She came forward rather sullenly; and Anstice, irritated by her manner, spoke in rather a peremptory tone.

"Let me see your hands, please. I understand you were burnt last night."

Unwillingly the woman held out her left hand, which was wrapped round with a roughly constructed bandage; and as Anstice took it and began to unwind the folds he heard her draw in her breath with an odd little hiss.

"Did I hurt you?" he asked, surprised, and the woman answered stolidly.

"No, thank you, sir. You did not hurt me at all."

Her manner struck him as peculiar; it almost seemed as though she resented his efforts on her behalf; and as he unwrapped the last of the bandage Anstice told himself she was by no means an attractive patient.

But when he saw her hand he forgave her all her peculiarities; for she must have suffered untold pain during the hours which had elapsed since the accident.

"I say—why didn't you show your hand to the doctor last night?" He spoke impetuously, really shocked to see the extent of her burns. "You have given yourself a lot of unnecessary pain, and it will take much longer to heal. You must let me dress the place at once."

Assisted by Chloe, who fetched and carried for him deftly, he dressed and bound up the burnt hand; and though the woman never flinched, there was a look in her eyes which showed him she was enduring great pain.

"There." He finished his work and looked at her closely. "That will feel easier soon. But you know you should lie down and try to sleep for an hour or two—and that hand will be quite useless for some days. Really, Mrs. Carstairs"—he turned to Chloe—"I think you will have to let me send for a nurse, after all. You can't do everything, and Tochatti is more or less disabled——"

He was surprised by the effect of his words. Tochatti turned to her mistress eagerly, and began pouring out a stream of Italian which was quite incomprehensible to Anstice, who was no better at modern languages than the average public school and University product. And Chloe replied in the same tongue, though without the wealth of gesture employed by the other woman; while Anstice waited, silently, until the colloquy was concluded.

Finally Chloe turned, apologetically, to him and explained the subject of the woman's entreaties.

"Tochatti is so terribly upset at the idea of a strange woman coming to nurse Cherry that I have promised to try to persuade you to reverse your verdict," she said. "Do you mind? Of course if we can't manage you must do as you think fit—but——"

"We will try, by all means." In spite of himself, he was touched by the woman's fierce devotion to her charge. "And now I'll tell you exactly what I want you to do until I come again this afternoon."

He proceeded to give them full instructions how to look after the child, and when he had assured himself that they understood exactly what was to be done, he took his leave, promising to call again in the course of a few hours.

As he drove away he mused for a moment on the Italian woman's peculiar manner towards him.

"Seems as if she hated me to speak to her ... she's never been like that before—indeed, when Cherry broke her arm she used to welcome me quite demonstratively." He smiled, then grew grave again. "Of course the woman was in pain to-day—she was a queer colour, too—looked downright ill. I expect the affair has been a shock to her as well as to the child."

And with that conclusion he dismissed Tochatti from his mind for the time being, his thoughts reverting to the one subject which filled his mental horizon to-day.

All through the bright September afternoon he sat alone in his rarely-used drawing-room. The consulting-room was haunted ground to him since the episode of the previous evening, and he could not bear to go out into the village lest he might perhaps behold some signs of the great event which was agitating peaceful Littlefield to-day.

But his imagination, unmercifully awakened from the stupor which had temporarily lulled it to repose, showed him many visions on that golden September afternoon.

He saw the old grey church decked with flowers, saw the sunlight filtering through the famous Burne-Jones window in a splash of gorgeous blue and crimson, staining the white petals of the big lilies in the chancel ... he heard the peals of the organ as the choristers broke out into the hymn which heralded the bride ... saw the bride herself, a little pale, a little serious, in her white robes, in her eyes the grave and tender look whose possibility he had long ago divined....

Oh, he was a fool to let his imagination torment him so ... and he sprang to his feet, determined to put an end to these maddening visions which only unfitted him for the stern and hopeless battle which was all that he could look forward to henceforth....

As he moved impatiently towards the door a sudden peal of bells rang out gaily, exultantly on the soft and balmy air; and his face turned grey as he realized that this was the signal which betokened that Iris was now the wife of Bruce Cheniston, his to have and to hold, irrevocably his until death should intervene to end their dual existence....

With a muttered oath he strode out of the house, and making his way round to the garage ordered his car to be brought forth immediately.

When it came he flung himself into the steering seat and drove away at such a pace that Andrews, his outdoor man and general factotum, looked after him anxiously.

"Looks like getting his licence endorsed," he observed to the pretty housemaid, Alice, who was watching her master's departure from a convenient window. "Never saw him drive so reckless—he's generally what you might call a very considerate driver."

"Considerate? What of?" asked Alice ungrammatically. "The dogs and chickens in the road, d'you mean?"

"Dogs and chickens! Good Lord, no!" Andrews was a born mechanician, and it was a constant source of regret to him that Anstice generally drove the car himself. "They're nothing but a nuisance anyway. No, I meant he considered the car—but he don't look much like it to-day."

"Oh, the car!" Alice was openly scornful. "Well, from the pace he went off just now, I should think he'll smash up your precious old car before he goes far. And no loss either," said Alice, who was engaged to a soldier in a cavalry regiment, and therefore disdained all purely mechanical means of locomotion.

But once out on the road Anstice moderated his pace somewhat, since to run over an unwary pedestrian would only add to the general hopelessness of the situation; and he reached Cherry Orchard without any such mishap as his servants had prophesied for him.

Here he found things less satisfactory than he had hoped. Cherry was no better; indeed, to his experienced eye, the child was worse, and although Mrs. Carstairs showed no signs of fatigue, and was apparently prepared to nurse her little daughter indefinitely, it was evident that the woman Tochatti was worn out with pain, anxiety, and, possibly, remorse.

Although she pulled herself together sufficiently to answer Anstice's questions intelligibly, it was plain to see that she was in reality half dazed by the shock she had experienced and by want of sleep, and Anstice realized that if Cherry were to be properly nursed some other help must be obtained at once.

"See here, Mrs. Carstairs." His face was grave as he examined the child's condition. "I'm not going to beat about the bush—I'm going to send you a nurse to help you with Cherry."

"A nurse? But—can't Tochatti and I——?"

"You're all right," he said shortly. "You look good for any amount of nursing, though I can't imagine how you do it, seeing you had no sleep last night. But Tochatti is no use at present." He judged it best to speak frankly. "It is evident she is in pain with that hand of hers, and she will be fit for nothing to-night, at any rate."

Chloe did not contest the point further.

"Very well, Dr. Anstice. You know best; and if you think it necessary, will you find us someone at once?"

"Yes. I think I know just the person for you." He turned to Tochatti, who was standing by, her face full of smouldering resentment. "I'm sure you want me to do the best thing for Miss Cherry, don't you?"

She did not answer; and he repeated his question rather sharply.

This time she answered him.

"Si, signor." She spoke sulkily, and a flash of something like actual hatred shot from her black eyes as he watched her; but he had no time to spare for her vagaries, and turned back to Chloe Carstairs forthwith.

"Then I will try to find Nurse Trevor and bring her along. She will sit up to-night, and then you can both get some rest." He spoke kindly, including Tochatti in his smile; but the woman merely glowered, and he felt a spasm of sudden annoyance at her ungracious behaviour.

Luckily Nurse Trevor was at hand and disengaged; and Anstice had the satisfaction of finding her safely installed and apparently completely at home in her new surroundings when he paid his last visit to Cherry Orchard late that night.

She was a pretty girl of twenty-seven, who had had a good deal of experience in nursing children, and although poor little Cherry was by this time too ill to pay much attention to any of the people around her, it really seemed as though Margaret Trevor's soft voice, with its cooing, dove-like notes, had a soothing influence on the suffering child.

Anstice stayed some time in Cherry's room, doing all his skill could suggest for the alleviation of his little patient's pain, and when at length he took his departure Chloe herself came downstairs with him.

"What a lovely night!" She had opened the big hall door quietly while he sought his hat. "The moon must be nearly at the full, I think."

Together they stood on the steps looking out over the dew-drenched garden. The white stars of the jasmine which clustered thickly round the house sent out a delicious fragrance, and there were a dozen other scents on the soft and balmy air, as though the sleeping stocks and carnations and mignonette breathed sweetly in their sleep.

A big white owl flow, hooting, across the path, and Chloe shivered.

"I hate owls—I always think them unlucky, harbingers of evil," she said, and her face, as she spoke, was quite pale.

In an ordinary way Anstice would have deemed it his duty to scoff at such superstition; but to-night, his nerves unstrung, by the happenings of the last few days, his bodily vigour at a low ebb, his mind a chaos of miserable, hopeless memories and fears, Chloe's words woke a quite unexpected response in his soul.

"Don't say that, Mrs. Carstairs!" He spoke sharply. "Don't let us talk of bad luck—to-night of all nights!"

In the moonlight her narrow blue eyes studied his face with sudden keenness, and she felt an unusual desire to bring comfort to the soul which she felt with instinctive certainty stood in need of some help.

As a rule Chloe Carstairs, like Anstice himself, was too much preoccupied with the thought of her own private grudge against fate to have any sympathy to spare for others who might have known that Deity's frown; but to-night, owing possibly to some softening of her mental fibres induced by the sight of her child's suffering, she felt oddly pitiful towards this man, and her inward emotion found vent in words which surprised her as much as they startled the man to whom they were addressed.

"Why to-night, Dr. Anstice? Has this day been to you what it has been to me—a day of the bitterest suffering I have ever known?"

The tone of her deep voice, so oddly gentle, the compassionate expression in her usually cold blue eyes, were too much for Anstice, whose endurance was nearly at the breaking point; and he turned to her with a look in his face which dismayed her, so tragic was it.

"Mrs. Carstairs, this day I have been in—hell!" The word sounded cruelly out of place in the quiet moonlit night. "Once before I fancied I had reached the point at which a man may turn his back on life and its horrors without thinking himself a pitiful coward. I suffered then—my God, how I suffered!—but the torture I have endured to-day makes me feel as though I have never known what suffering is until now."

Her answer came quickly.

"But you know now that no man can turn his back on life and yet escape the allegation of cowardice!" It was an assertion rather than a question. "Dr. Anstice, I don't ask to know what your suffering has been—I don't want you to tell me—but one thing I do know, that you, and men like you, are not the ones who give up the battle when the fight is fiercest."

He delayed his answer so long that Chloe had time to feel curiously frightened by his silence. And when his reply came it was hardly reassuring.

"I thought you were too wise a woman to indulge in generalities, Mrs. Carstairs." His tired voice robbed the words of offence. "And don't you know that it is never safe to prophesy what a man will do in a battle? The bravest may turn coward beneath a hail of fire—the man who is afraid may perform some deed which will entitle him—and rightly—to the coveted Victoria Cross."

"Yes." She spoke steadily, her eyes on his face. "But that's the battlefield of the world, Dr. Anstice, the material, earthly battlefield. It's the battlefield of the soul I was thinking of just now; and if I may use a quotation which has been battered out of nearly all its original fine shape by careless usage, to me the truly brave man is he who remains to the end the—'captain of his soul!'"

Her voice sank on the last words; but Anstice had caught her meaning, and he turned to her with a new light in his tired eyes.

"Mrs. Carstairs, thank you for what you've just said. Captain of his soul—yes, I've heard it often enough, but never stopped to ponder its meaning. And as the captain mustn't lose his ship if mortal man can prevent the loss, so a man must bring the ship of his soul safely into port. Is that what you meant just now?"

She smiled faintly in the moonlight, and for once there was no mockery in her smile.

"We have wandered from our original metaphor of a battlefield," she said gently, "but I like your simile of a ship better. Yes, I suppose that is what I was trying to convey—in a confused fashion, I'm afraid. We each have our voyage to complete, our ship to bring into harbour; and even though sometimes it seems about to founder"—he knew she alluded to the catastrophe of her own life—"we must not let it sink if we can keep it afloat."

For a moment there was silence between them; and again they heard the melancholy hoot of the owl, flying homewards now.

Then Anstice said slowly:

"You are right, of course. But"—at last his pent-up bitterness burst its bounds and overflowed in quick, vehement speech—"it's easy enough for a man to handle his ship carefully when he has some precious thing on board—or even when he knows some welcoming voice will greet him as he enters—at last—into his haven. But the man whose ship is empty, who has no right to expect even one greeting word—is there no excuse for him if he navigate the seas carelessly?"

"No." In the moonlight she faced him, and her eyes looked oddly luminous. "For a derelict's the greatest danger a boat can encounter on the high seas ... all our boats cross and recross the paths of others, you know, and no man has the right to place another's ship in peril by his own—carelessness."

"By God, you're right," he said vehemently; and she did not resent his hasty speech. "Mrs. Carstairs, you've done more for me to-night than you know—and if I can repay you I will, though it cost me all I have in the world."

"You can repay me very easily," she said, holding out her hand, all the motherhood in her coming to the surface. "Save Cherry—she is all I have—now—in the world; and her little barque, at least, was meant to dance over summer seas."

"God helping me, I will save her," he said, taking her hand in a quick, earnest clasp; and then he entered his waiting car and drove away without another word, a new courage in his heart.

And as Chloe gently closed the heavy door on the peaceful, fragrant world without and returned to the little room where Cherry lay in an uneasy slumber, she knew that a faint suspicion which had crossed her mind earlier in the summer had been verified to-night.

"He too loved Iris," she said to herself, with a rather sad little smile. "And I thought—once—that she was ready to love him in return. But, I suppose she preferred Bruce. Only"—Chloe had no illusions on the subject of her brother—"I believe Dr. Anstice would have made her a happier woman than Bruce will ever be able to do. And if he"—she did not refer to Cheniston now—"has lost his chance of happiness to-day, no wonder he feels that he has been in hell. For there is no hell so terrible as the one in which a soul who loves wanders alone, without its beloved," said the woman whose husband had left her because of a cruel doubt. "From the bottom of my heart I pity that man to-night!"

And then, re-entering Cherry's little room, pathetic now in its very brightness of colouring, Chloe forgot all else in the world save the child who slept, in the narrow bed, watched by Margaret Trevor's soft, brooding eyes.