“You were out very late last night, John,” Mr. Carlyon said presently.  “I left this window open for you on purpose.  The garden does one good sometimes.  You were not lonely, I hope?”

“No,” said John Derringham; but he would not look at his old master, for he knew very well he should see a whimsical sparkle in his eyes.

Mr. Carlyon, of course, must be aware of Halcyone’s night wandering proclivities.  And if there had been nothing to conceal John Derringham would have liked to have sat down now and rhapsodized all about his darling to his old friend, who adored her, too, and knew and appreciated all her points.  He felt bitterly that Fate had not been as kind to him as she might have been.  However, there was nothing for it, so he turned the conversation and tried to make himself grow as interested in a question of foreign policy as he would have been able to be, say, a year ago.  And then he went out for a walk.

And Cheiron sat musing in his chair, as was his habit.

“The magnet of her soul is drawing his,” he said to himself.  “Well, now that this has begun to work, we must leave things to Fate.”

But he did not guess how passion on the one side and complete love and trust upon the other were precipitously forcing Fate’s hand.

The possibility of John Derringham’s sending a message to Halcyone was very slender.  The post was out of the question—­she probably never got any letters, and the arrival of one in a man’s handwriting would no doubt be the cause of endless comment in the household.  The foolishness had been not to make a definite appointment with her when they had parted before dawn.  But they had been too overcome with love to think of anything practical in those last moments, and now the only thing would be for him to go again to-night to the tree, and hope that she would meet him there.  But the sky was clouding over, and rain looked quite ready to fall.  As a last resource he could send Demetrius—­his own valet he would not have trusted a yard.

The rain kept off for his journey to Bristol, and his business was got through with rapidity.  And if the registrar did connect the name of John Derringham, barrister-at-law, of the Temple, London, with John Derringham, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, he was a man of discretion and said nothing about it.

It was quite late when Mr. Carlyon’s guest returned to his roof—­cross-country trains were so tiresome—­and it had just begun to pour with rain, so there was no use expecting that Halcyone would be there by the tree.  And bed, with a rather feverish sensation of disappointment, seemed John Derringham’s portion.