“Ah!  Never despair,” he muttered.

“This, Mr. Renouard, is a work of reparation.  I stand for truth here.  I can’t think of myself.”

He could have taken her by the throat for every word seemed an insult to his passion; but he only said —

“I never doubted the—­the—­nobility of your purpose.”

“And to hear the word weariness pronounced in this connection surprises me.  And from a man too who, I understand, has never counted the cost.”

“You are pleased to tease me,” he said, directly he had recovered his voice and had mastered his anger.  It was as if Professor Moorsom had dropped poison in his ear which was spreading now and tainting his passion, his very jealousy.  He mistrusted every word that came from those lips on which his life hung.  “How can you know anything of men who do not count the cost?” he asked in his gentlest tones.

“From hearsay—­a little.”

“Well, I assure you they are like the others, subject to suffering, victims of spells. . . .”

“One of them, at least, speaks very strangely.”

She dismissed the subject after a short silence.  “Mr. Renouard, I had a disappointment this morning.  This mail brought me a letter from the widow of the old butler—­you know.  I expected to learn that she had heard from—­from here.  But no.  No letter arrived home since we left.”

Her voice was calm.  His jealousy couldn’t stand much more of this sort of talk; but he was glad that nothing had turned up to help the search; glad blindly, unreasonably—­only because it would keep her longer in his sight—­since she wouldn’t give up.

“I am too near her,” he thought, moving a little further on the seat.  He was afraid in the revulsion of feeling of flinging himself on her hands, which were lying on her lap, and covering them with kisses.  He was afraid.  Nothing, nothing could shake that spell—­not if she were ever so false, stupid, or degraded.  She was fate itself.  The extent of his misfortune plunged him in such a stupor that he failed at first to hear the sound of voices and footsteps inside the drawing-room.  Willie had come home—­and the Editor was with him.

They burst out on the terrace babbling noisily, and then pulling themselves together stood still, surprising—­and as if themselves surprised.

CHAPTER VII

They had been feasting a poet from the bush, the latest discovery of the Editor.  Such discoveries were the business, the vocation, the pride and delight of the only apostle of letters in the hemisphere, the solitary patron of culture, the Slave of the Lamp—­ as he subscribed himself at the bottom of the weekly literary page of his paper.  He had had no difficulty in persuading the virtuous Willie (who had festive instincts) to help in the good work, and now they had left the poet lying asleep on the hearthrug of the editorial room and had rushed to the Dunster mansion wildly.  The Editor had another discovery to announce.  Swaying a little where he stood he opened his mouth very wide to shout the one word “Found!” Behind him Willie flung both his hands above his head and let them fall dramatically.  Renouard saw the four white-headed people at the end of the terrace rise all together from their chairs with an effect of sudden panic.