“Paul!...  Paul!...”

With his teeth hard set, he dropped the first page of Romilly into the fire.  Then he began to drop the rest in, sheet by sheet.

For many minutes the calling behind his door continued; then suddenly it ceased.  He heard the sound of feet slowly descending the stairs.  He listened for the noise of a fall or a cry or the crash of a piece of the handrail of the upper landing; but none of these things came.  She was spared.  Apparently her rival suffered her to crawl abject and beaten away.  Oleron heard the passing of her steps under his window; then she was gone.

He dropped the last page into the fire, and then, with a low laugh rose.  He looked fondly round his room.

“Lucky to get away like that,” he remarked.  “She wouldn’t have got away if I’d given her as much as a word or a look!  What devils these women are!...  But no; I oughtn’t to say that; one of ’em showed forbearance....”

Who showed forbearance?  And what was forborne?  Ah, Oleron knew!...  Contempt, no doubt, had been at the bottom of it, but that didn’t matter:  the pestering creature had been allowed to go unharmed.  Yes, she was lucky; Oleron hoped she knew it....

And now, now, now for his reward!

Oleron crossed the room.  All his doors were open; his eyes shone as he placed himself within that of his bedroom.

Fool that he had been, not to think of destroying the manuscript sooner!...

* * * * *

How, in a houseful of shadows, should he know his own Shadow?  How, in a houseful of noises, distinguish the summons he felt to be at hand?  Ah, trust him!  He would know!  The place was full of a jugglery of dim lights.  The blind at his elbow that allowed the light of a street lamp to struggle vaguely through—­the glimpse of greeny blue moonlight seen through the distant kitchen door—­the sulky glow of the fire under the black ashes of the burnt manuscript—­the glimmering of the tulips and the moon-daisies and narcissi in the bowls and jugs and jars—­these did not so trick and bewilder his eyes that he would not know his Own!  It was he, not she, who had been delaying the shadowy Bridal; he hung his head for a moment in mute acknowledgment; then he bent his eyes on the deceiving, puzzling gloom again.  He would have called her name had he known it—­but now he would not ask her to share even a name with the other....

His own face, within the frame of the door, glimmered white as the narcissi in the darkness....

A shadow, light as fleece, seemed to take shape in the kitchen (the time had been when Oleron would have said that a cloud had passed over the unseen moon).  The low illumination on the blind at his elbow grew dimmer (the time had been when Oleron would have concluded that the lamplighter going his rounds had turned low the flame of the lamp).  The fire settled, letting down the black and charred papers; a flower fell from a bowl, and lay indistinct upon the floor; all was still; and then a stray draught moved through the old house, passing before Oleron’s face....