She threw back her head and looked at me.  Her elusive loveliness, lying all in colour and bloom and light, was at its height.  She was intensely excited, and the excitement paled the skin, widened the lustrous eyes, heightened the extreme delicacy of the face.  I bent over her and kissed her as I had never done yet; it was one of those moments in life when the soul seems to have wings and fly upwards.

After a moment.

“And then,” I said, “did you come back to me?”

“Well, gradually, as I sat there, a horror of Lawton, of everything came over me.  I did not know how long I had sat there.  I looked at my watch:  it was two.  I was terrified.  I only wanted to escape.  I got up to go, and just then I heard Lawton coming in.  There was a screen near me, and it did just occur to me I might conceal myself and pass out as he went to the inner room; but I did not like the idea of hiding in any one’s rooms, so I stood still, and he came in.”

She was silent, and I felt suddenly plunged back into a mist of questioning horror.  What had passed between these two?  Had any links in some new chain been forged?

But she was mine!  Mine! and I would never let her go.

“What did you say?” I asked her.  My throat was so dry the words were hardly more than a whisper.

“He started of course on seeing me, and then rushed forwards and said, ‘Darling,’ or something of that sort.  I hardly heard what he said.  I said simply:  ’I was just going when you came in.  I can’t stay.’  Then, of course, he asked me why I had come and all that and, oh, heaps and heaps of things.  You know all the usual things a man does say, and I answered if he really cared for me he would let me go at once.  Then he walked to the door, shut and locked it, and put the key in his pocket.”

She paused, and I looked away from her.  I was in such a passion of rage against the man, and almost also with her for putting herself in such a position, I did not care for her to see my eyes.

“Go on,” I said; “what did you do?”

“I asked him why he had locked the door, and he said to prevent my going until I had told him why I had come.  I said I had changed my mind in the hours I had sat there, and he answered:  ’Well, you will change it again if you stay here some more hours,’ and he came and sat on the chair arm beside me.  You see, Trevor, it wasn’t his fault a bit, for he guessed I had come with all sorts of nice feelings for him, and he felt it was only his part, as it were, to play up to the situation, that it would be impossible to do anything but seem to wish to keep me when I had come.”

“Don’t trouble to tell me all that,” I said angrily; “I know what Lawton feels for you.  I know he is wild about you.  I wonder you are not murdered.  Go on, what did he do?”

“He was awfully good and nice.  He tried for an hour to persuade me.  He wanted to kiss me, of course.  I said I was in his power, but that he would kill me before I would kiss him voluntarily.  I think that convinced him, for he walked straight to the door and unlocked it and threw it open.  Then he said he couldn’t let me go into the streets at that hour alone, and so he came with me.  He walked all the way here and left me at this door.  That’s all.”