He was on the rack again; and the wonder was how he had ever left it.  It seemed to him that he could never have been long released at any time.  He had had moments of comparative ease, when he could lie on it at one end of the room and see Lucia sitting at the other, and the sight of her must have soothed his agony.  He had had moments of forgetfulness, of illusion, when he had gone to sleep on the rack, and had dreamed the most delicious dreams, moments even of deliverance, when his conscience, exhausted with the sheer effort of winding, had dropped to sleep too.  And then had come the reckless moments, when he had yielded himself wholly to the delight of her presence; and that supreme instant when his love for Lucia seemed to have set him free.

And now it was love itself, furiously accusing, that flung him back upon the torture, and stretched him out further than he had been stretched before.

But Dicky’s letter had to be answered at once.  He settled Dicky for the present by reminding him that nothing could be done by either of them till the twenty-seventh.  But he thought that if Sir Frederick or any of his family were unable to pay up, there ought to be no difficulty in arranging with his father.

To his father he sent a word of warning.  “For Goodness’ sake don’t commit yourself with Pilkington until you see me.  I shall probably be back in town to-morrow afternoon!”

Having settled Dicky, he breakfasted, bathed, was a little long over his dressing, taking care that nothing in his appearance should suggest the dishevelled person of the dawn.  Thus he was rather later than usual in presenting himself at the library.  He found Miss Harden there at his end of the table, with his note-book, busy over his pile and engaged in finishing his Section—­Philosophy.  Her clear and candid eyes greeted him without a shadow of remembrance.  She had always this air of accepting him provisionally, for the moment only, as if her kindness had no springs in the past and could promise nothing for the future.  He had always found this manner a little distressing, and it baffled him completely now.  Still, in another minute he would have to tell her, whatever her manner or her mood.

“Miss Harden,” he began, “you’ve been so awfully good to me, there’s something that I want most awfully to say to you.”

“Well, say it.”  But there was that in her tone which warned him not to be too long about it.

“It’s something I ought to have said—­to have confessed—­ages ago—­”

“Oh no, really Mr. Rickman, if it’s a confession, you mustn’t do it now.  We shall never finish at this rate.”

“When may I?”

“Some time in the afternoon, perhaps.”  Her smile, which was exceedingly subtle, disconcerted him inexpressibly.  She turned at once to the business of the day.  The question was whether he would begin on a new section, or finish this one with her, writing at her dictation?