A little before six o'clock on that same Sunday, Jean Dunbarton opened the communicating door between her own little sitting-room and the big bare drawing-room of her grandfather's house in Eaton Square. She stood a moment on the threshold, looking back over her shoulder, and then crossed the drawing-room, treading softly on the parquet spaces between the rugs. She went straight to the window, and was in the act of parting the lace curtains to look out, when she heard the folding doors open. With raised finger she turned to say 'Sh!' The servant stood silently waiting, while she went back to the door she had left open and with an air of caution closed it.

When she turned round again the butler had stepped aside to admit Mr. Stonor. He came in with a quick impatient step; but before he had time to get a word out—'Speak low, please,' the girl said. He was obviously too much annoyed to pay much heed to her request, which if he thought about it at all, he must have interpreted as consideration for the ailing grandfather.

'I waited a full half-hour for you to come back,' he said in a tone no lower than usual.

The girl had led the way to the side of the room furthest from the communicating door. 'I am sorry,' she said dully.

'If you didn't mind leaving me like that,' he followed her up with his arraignment, 'you might at least have considered Lady John.'

'Is she here with you?' Jean stopped by the sofa near the window.

'No,' he said curtly. 'My place was nearer than this and she was tired. I left her to get some tea. We couldn't tell whether you'd be here, or what had become of you!'

'Mr. Trent got us a hansom.'

'Trent?'

'The chairman of the meeting.'

'Got us——?'

'Miss Levering and me.'

Stonor's incensed face turned almost brick colour as he repeated, 'Miss Lev——!'

Before he got the name out, the folding doors had opened again, and the butler was saying, 'Mr. Farnborough.'

That young gentleman was far too anxious and flurried himself, to have sufficient detachment of mind to consider the moods of other people. 'At last!' he said, stopping short as soon as he caught sight of Stonor.

'Don't speak loud, please,' said Miss Dunbarton; 'some one is resting in the next room.'

'Oh, did you find your grandfather worse?'—but he never waited to learn. 'You'll forgive the incursion when you hear'—he turned abruptly to Stonor again. 'They've been telegraphing you all over London,' he said, putting his hat down in the nearest chair. 'In sheer despair they set me on your track.'

'Who did?'

Farnborough was fumbling agitatedly in his breast-pocket. 'There was the devil to pay at Dutfield last night. The Liberal chap tore down from London, and took over your meeting.'

'Oh? Nothing about it in the Sunday paper I saw.'

'Wait till you see the press to-morrow! There was a great rally, and the beggar made a rousing speech.'

'What about?'

'Abolition of the Upper House.'

'They were at that when I was at Eton.' Stonor turned on his heel.

'Yes, but this man has got a way of putting things—the people went mad.'

It was all very well for a mere girl to be staring indifferently out of the window, while a great historic party was steering straight for shipwreck; but it really was too much to see this man who ought to be taking the situation with the seriousness it deserved, strolling about the room with that abstracted air, looking superciliously at Mr. Dunbarton's examples of the Glasgow school. Farnborough balanced himself on wide-apart legs and thrust one hand in his trousers' pocket. The other hand held a telegram. 'The Liberal platform as defined at Dutfield is going to make a big difference,' he pronounced.

'You think so,' said Stonor, dryly.

'Well, your agent says as much.' He pulled off the orange-brown envelope, threw it and the reply-paid form on the table, and held the message under the eyes of the obviously surprised gentleman in front of him.

'My agent!' Stonor had echoed with faint incredulity.

He took the telegram. '"Try find Stonor,"' he read. 'H'm! H'm!' His eyes ran on.

Farnborough looked first at the expressionless face, and then at the message.

'You see!'—he glanced over Stonor's shoulder—'"tremendous effect of last night's Liberal manifesto ought to be counteracted in to-morrow's papers."' Then withdrawing a couple of paces, he said very earnestly, 'You see, Mr. Stonor, it's a battle-cry we want.'

'Clap-trap,' said the great man, throwing the telegram down on the table.

'Well,' said Farnborough, distinctly dashed, 'they've been saying we have nothing to offer but personal popularity. No practical reform, no——'

'No truckling to the masses, I suppose.'

Poor Farnborough bit his lip. 'Well, in these democratic days, you're obliged (I should think), to consider——' In his baulked and snubbed condition he turned to Miss Dunbarton for countenance. 'I hope you'll forgive my bursting in like this, but'—he gathered courage as he caught a glimpse of her averted face—'I can see you realize the gravity of the situation.' He found her in the embrasure of the window, and went on with an air of speaking for her ear alone. 'My excuse for being so officious—you see it isn't as if he were going to be a mere private member. Everybody knows he'll be in the Cabinet.'

'It may be a Liberal Cabinet,' came from Stonor at his dryest.

Farnborough leapt back into the fray. 'Nobody thought so up to last night. Why, even your brother——' he brought up short. 'But I'm afraid I'm really seeming rather too——' He took up his hat.

'What about my brother?'

'Oh, only that I went from your house to the club, you know—and I met Lord Windlesham as I rushed up the Carlton steps.'

'Well?'

'I told him the Dutfield news.'

Stonor turned sharply round. His face was much more interested than any of his words had been.

As though in the silence, Stonor had asked a question, Farnborough produced the answer.

'Your brother said it only confirmed his fears.'

'Said that, did he?' Stonor spoke half under his breath.

'Yes. Defeat is inevitable, he thinks, unless——' Farnborough waited, intently watching the big figure that had begun pacing back and forth. It paused, but no word came, even the eyes were not raised.

'Unless,' Farnborough went on, 'you can manufacture some political dynamite within the next few hours. Those were his words.'

As Stonor resumed his walk he raised his head and caught sight of Jean's face. He stopped short directly in front of her.

'You are very tired,' he said.

'No, no.' She turned again to the window.

'I'm obliged to you for troubling about this,' he said, offering Farnborough his hand with the air of civilly dismissing him. 'I'll see what can be done.'

Farnborough caught up the reply-paid form from the table. 'If you'd like to wire I'll take it.'

Faintly amused at this summary view of large complexities, 'You don't understand, my young friend,' he said, not unkindly. 'Moves of this sort are not rushed at by responsible politicians. I must have time for consideration.'

Farnborough's face fell. 'Oh. Well, I only hope some one else won't jump into the breach before you.' With his watch in one hand, he held out the other to Miss Dunbarton. 'Good-bye. I'll just go and find out what time the newspapers go to press on Sunday. I'll be at the Club,' he threw over his shoulder, 'just in case I can be of any use.'

'No; don't do that. If I should have anything new to say——'

'B-b-but with our party, as your brother said, "heading straight for a vast electoral disaster," and the Liberals——'

'If I decide on a counter-blast, I shall simply telegraph to headquarters. Good-bye.'

'Oh! A—a—good-bye.'

With a gesture of 'the country's going to the dogs,' Farnborough opened the doors and closed them behind him.

Jean had rung the bell. She came back with her eyes on the ground, and paused near the table where the crumpled envelope made a dash of yellow-brown on the polished satinwood. Stonor stood studying the carpet, more concern in his face now that there was only Jean to see it.

'"Political dynamite," eh?' he repeated, walking a few paces away. He returned with, 'After all, women are much more Conservative naturally than men, aren't they?'

Jean's lowered eyes showed no spark of interest in the issue. Her only motion, an occasional locking and unlocking of her fingers. But no words came. He glanced at her, as if for the first time conscious of her silence.

'You see now'—he threw himself into a chair—'one reason why I've encouraged you to take an interest in public questions. Because people like us don't go screaming about it, is no sign we don't—some of us—see what's on the way. However little they may want to, women of our class will have to come into line. All the best things in the world, everything civilization has won, will be in danger if—when this change comes—the only women who have practical political training are the women of the lower classes. Women of the lower classes,' he repeated, 'and'—the line between his eyebrows deepening—'women inoculated by the Socialist virus.'

'Geoffrey!'

He was in no mood to discuss a concrete type. To so intelligent a girl, a hint should be enough. He drew the telegraph-form that still lay on the table towards him.

'Let us see how it would sound, shall we?'

He detached a gold pencil from one end of his watch-chain, and, with face more and more intent, bent over the paper, writing.

The girl opened her lips more than once to speak, and each time fell back again on her silent, half-incredulous misery.

When Stonor finished writing, he held the paper off, smiling a little, with the craftsman's satisfaction in his work, and more than a touch of shrewd malice—

'Enough dynamite in that,' he commented. 'Rather too much, isn't there, little girl?'

'Geoffrey, I know her story.'

He looked at her for the first time since Farnborough left the room.

'Whose story?'

'Miss Levering's.'

'Whose?' He crushed the rough note of his manifesto into his pocket.

'Vida Levering's.'

He stared at the girl, till across the moment's silence a cry of misery went out—

'Why did you desert her?'

'I?' he said, like one staggered by the sheer wildness of the charge. 'I?'

But no comfort of doubting seemed to cross the darkness of Jean's backward look into the past.

'Oh, why did you do it?'

'What, in the name of——? What has she been saying to you?'

'Some one else told me part. Then the way you looked when you saw her at Aunt Ellen's—Miss Levering's saying you didn't know her—then your letting out that you knew even the curious name on the handkerchief—oh, I pieced it together.'

While she poured out the disjointed sentences, he had recovered his self-possession.

'Your ingenuity is undeniable,' he said coldly, rising to his feet. But he paused as the girl went on—

'And then when she said that at the meeting about "the dark hour," and I looked at her face, it flashed over me——Oh, why did you desert her?'

It was as if the iteration of that charge stung him out of his chill anger.

'I didn't desert her,' he said.

'Ah-h!' Her hands went fluttering up to her eyes, and hid the quivering face. Something in the action touched him, his face changed, and he made a sudden passionate movement toward the trembling figure standing there with hidden eyes. In another moment his arms would have been round her. Her muffled voice saying, 'I'm glad. I'm glad,' checked him. He stood bewildered, making with noiseless lips the word 'Glad?' She was 'glad' he hadn't tired of her rival? The girl brushed the tears from her eyes, and steadied herself against the table.

'She went away from you, then?'

The momentary softening had vanished out of Geoffrey Stonor's face. In its stead the look of aloofness that few dared brave, the warning 'thus far and no farther' stamped on every feature, he answered—

'You can hardly expect me to enter into——'

She broke through the barrier without ruth—such strength, such courage has honest pain.

'You mean she went away from you?'

'Yes!' The sharp monosyllable fell out like a thing metallic.

'Was that because you wouldn't marry her?'

'I couldn't marry her—and she knew it.' He turned on his heel.

'Did you want to?'

He paused nearly at the window, and looked back at her. She deserved to have the bare 'yes,' but she was a child. He would soften a little the truth's harsh impact upon the young creature's shrinking jealousy.

'I thought I wanted to marry her then. It's a long time ago.'

'And why couldn't you?'

He controlled a movement of strong irritation. 'Why are you catechizing me? It's a matter that concerns another woman.'

'If you say it doesn't concern me, you're saying'—her lip trembled—'saying that you don't concern me.'

With more difficulty than the girl dreamed, he compelled himself to answer quietly—

'In those days—I—I was absolutely dependent on my father.'

'Why, you must have been thirty, Geoffrey.'

'What? Oh—thereabouts.'

'And everybody says you're so clever.'

'Well, everybody's mistaken.'

She left the table, and drew nearer to him. 'It must have been terribly hard——'

Sounding the depth of sympathy in the gentle voice, he turned towards her to meet a check in the phrase—

'——terribly hard for you both.'

He stood there stonily, but looking rather handsome in his big, sulky way. The sort of person who dictates terms rather than one to accept meekly the thing that might befall.

Something of that overbearing look of his must have penetrated the clouded consciousness of the girl, for she was saying—

'You! a man like you not to have had the freedom, that even the lowest seem to have——'

'Freedom?'

'To marry the woman they choose.'

'She didn't break off our relations because I couldn't marry her.'

'Why was it, then?'

'You're too young to discuss such a story.' He turned away.

'I'm not so young,' said the shaking voice, 'as she was when——'

'Very well, then, if you will have it!' His look was ill to meet, for any one who loved him. 'The truth is, it didn't weigh upon her as it seems to on you, that I wasn't able to marry her.'

'Why are you so sure of that?'

'Because she didn't so much as hint at it when she wrote that she meant to break off the—the——'

'What made her write like that?'

'Why will you go on talking of what's so long over and ended?'

'What reason did she give?'

'If your curiosity has so got the upper hand, ask her.'

Her eyes were upon him. In a whisper, 'You're afraid to tell me,' she said.

He went over to the window, seeming to wait there for something that did not come. He turned round at last.

'I still hoped, at that time, to win my father over. She blamed me because'—again he faced the window and looked blindly out—'if the child had lived it wouldn't have been possible to get my father to—to overlook it.'

'You—wanted—it overlooked?' the girl said faintly. 'I don't underst——'

He came back to her on a wave of passion. 'Of course you don't understand. If you did you wouldn't be the beautiful, tender, innocent child you are.' He took her hand, and tried to draw her to him.

She withdrew her hand, and shrank from him with a movement, slight as it was, so tragically eloquent, that fear for the first time caught hold of him.

'I am glad you didn't mean to desert her, Geoffrey. It wasn't your fault, after all—only some misunderstanding that can be cleared up.'

'Cleared up?'

'Yes, cleared up.'

'You aren't thinking that this miserable old affair I'd as good as forgotten——'

He did not see the horror-struck glance at the door, but he heard the whisper—

'Forgotten!'

'No, no'—he caught himself up—'I don't mean exactly forgotten. But you're torturing me so that I don't know what I'm saying.' He went closer. 'You aren't going to let this old thing come between you and me?'

She pressed her handkerchief to her lips, and then took it away.

'I can't make or unmake the past,' she said steadily. 'But I'm glad, at least, that you didn't mean to desert her in her trouble. You'll remind her of that first of all, won't you?'

She was moving across the room as she spoke, and, when she had ended, the handkerchief went quickly to her lips again as if to shut the door on sobbing.

'Where are you going?' He raised his voice. 'Why should I remind anybody of what I want only to forget?'

'Hush! Oh, hush!' A moment she looked back, holding up praying hands.

His eyes had flown to the door. 'You don't mean she's——'

'Yes. I left her to get a little rest.'

He recoiled in an access of uncontrollable anger. She followed him. Speechless, he eluded her, and went for his hat.

'Geoffrey,' she cried, 'don't go before you hear me. I don't know if what I think matters to you now, but I hope it does. You can still'—her voice was faint with tears—'still make me think of you without shrinking—if you will.'

He fixed her for a moment with eyes more stern than she had ever seen.

'What is it you are asking of me?' he said.

'To make amends, Geoffrey.'

His anger went out on a wave of pity. 'You poor little innocent!'

'I'm poor enough. But'—she locked her hands together like one who summons all her resolution—'I'm not so innocent but what I know you must right that old wrong now, if you're ever to right it.'

'You aren't insane enough to think I would turn round in these few hours and go back to something that ten years ago was ended forever!' As he saw how unmoved her face was, 'Why,' he burst out, 'it's stark, staring madness!'

'No!' She caught his arm. 'What you did ten years ago—that was mad. This is paying a debt.'

Any man looking on, or hearing of Stonor's dilemma, would have said, 'Leave the girl alone to come to her senses.' But only a stupid man would himself have done it. Stonor caught her two hands in his, and drew her into his arms.

'Look, here, Jeannie, you're dreadfully wrought up and excited—tired, too.'

'No!' She freed herself, and averted the tear-stained face. 'Not tired, though I've travelled far to-day. I know you smile at sudden conversions. You think they're hysterical—worse—vulgar. But people must get their revelation how they can. And, Geoffrey, if I can't make you see this one of mine, I shall know your love could never mean strength to me—only weakness. And I shall be afraid,' she whispered. Her dilated eyes might have seen a ghost lurking there in the commonplace room. 'So afraid I should never dare give you the chance of making me loathe myself.' There was a pause, and out of the silence fell words that were like the taking of a vow. 'I would never see you again.'

'How right I was to be afraid of that vein of fanaticism in you!'

'Certainly you couldn't make a greater mistake than to go away now and think it any good ever to come back. Even if I came to feel different, I couldn't do anything different. I should know all this couldn't be forgotten. I should know that it would poison my life in the end—yours too.'

'She has made good use of her time!' he said bitterly. Then, upon a sudden thought, 'What has changed her? Has she been seeing visions too?'

'What do you mean?'

'Why is she intriguing to get hold of a man that ten years ago she flatly refused to see or hold any communication with?'

'Intriguing to get hold of? She hasn't mentioned you!'

'What! Then how, in the name of Heaven, do you know—she wants—what you ask?'

'There can't be any doubt about that,' said the girl, firmly.

With all his tenderness for her, so little still did he understand what she was going through, that he plainly thought all her pain had come of knowing that this other page was in his life—he had no glimpse of the girl's passionate need to think of that same long-turned-over page as unmarred by the darker blot.

'You absurd, ridiculous child!' With immense relief he dropped into the nearest chair. 'Then all this is just your own unaided invention. Well, I could thank God!' He passed his handkerchief over his face.

'For what are you thanking God?'

He sat there obviously thinking out his plan of action.

'Suppose—I'm not going to risk it—but suppose——' He looked up, and at the sight of Jean's face he rose with an expression strangely gentle. The rather hard eyes were softened in a sudden mist. 'Whether I deserve to suffer or not, it's quite certain you don't. Don't cry, dear one. It never was the real thing. I had to wait till I knew you before I understood.'

Her own eyes were brimming as she lifted them in a passion of gratitude to his face.

'Oh! is that true? Loving you has made things clear to me I didn't dream of before. If I could think that because of me you were able to do this——'

'You go back to that?' He seized her by the shoulders, and said hoarsely, 'Look here! Do you seriously ask me to give up the girl I love—to go and offer to marry a woman that even to think of——'

'You cared for her once!' she cried. 'You'll care about her again. She is beautiful and brilliant—everything. I've heard she could win any man——'

He pushed the girl from him. 'She's bewitched you!' He was halfway to the door.

'Geoffrey, Geoffrey, you aren't going away like that? This isn't the end?'

The face he turned back upon her was dark and hesitating. 'I suppose if she refused me, you'd——'

'She won't refuse you.'

'She did once.'

'She didn't refuse to marry you.'

As she passed him on the way to her sitting-room he caught her by the arm.

'Stop!' he said, glancing about like one hunting desperately for a means of gaining a few minutes. 'Lady John is waiting all this time at my house for the car to go back with a message.'

'That's not a matter of life and death!' she said, with all the impatience of the young at that tyranny of little things which seems to hold its unrelenting sway, though the battlements of righteousness are rocking, and the tall towers of love are shaken to the nethermost foundation-stones.

'No, it's not a matter of life and death,' Stonor said quietly. 'All the same, I'll go down and give the order.'

'Very well.' Of her own accord this time she stopped on her way to that other door, behind which was the Past and the Future incarnate in one woman. 'I'll wait,' said Jean. She went to the table. Sitting there with her face turned from him, she said, quite low, 'You'll come back, if you're the man I pray you are.'

Her self-control seemed all at once to fail. She leaned her elbows on the table and broke into a flood of silent tears, with face hidden in her hands.

He came swiftly back, and bent over her a moved, adoring face.

'Dearest of all the world,' he began, in that beautiful voice of his.

His arms were closing round her, when the door on the left was softly opened. Vida Levering stood on the threshold.