“How long are you to remain there, Garry?”

“Where?”—­coming out of abstraction.

“There—­at Mrs. Ascott’s?”

“Oh, I don’t know—­a month, I suppose.”

“Not longer?”

“I can’t tell, Shiela.”

Young Mrs. Malcourt fell silent, eyes on the ground, one knee loosely crossed over the other, and her small foot swinging gently above its blue shadow on the gravel.

Some details in the eternal scheme of things were troubling her already; for one, the liberty of this man to come and go at will; and the dawning perception of her own chaining.

It was curious, too, to be sitting here so idly beside him, and realise that she had belonged to him so absolutely—­remembering the thousand thrilling intimacies that bound them immortally together—­and now to be actually so isolated, so beyond his reach, so alone, so miserably certain of her soul’s safety!...  And now, for the first time, she missed the pleasures of fear—­the exquisite trepidation that lay in unsafety—­the blessed thrill of peril warning her to avoid his eyes, his touch, his—­lips.

She glanced uneasily at him, a slow side gaze; and met his eyes.

Her heart had begun beating faster; a glow grew in her veins; she closed her eyes, sitting there surprised—­not yet frightened.

Time throbbed on; rigid, motionless, she endured the pulsing silence while the blood quickened till body and limbs seemed burning; and suddenly, from heart to throat the tension tightened as though a cry, echoing within her, was being strangled.

“Perhaps you had better—­go—­” she managed to say.

“Why?”

She looked down at her restless fingers interlacing, too confused to be actually afraid of herself or him.

What was there to fear?  What occult uneasiness was haunting them?  Where might lie any peril, now?  How could the battle begin again when all was quiet along the firing line—­quiet with the quiet of death?  Do dead memories surge up into furies?  Can dead hopes burn again?  Is there any resurrection for the insurgent passions of the past laid for ever under the ban of wedlock?  The fear within her turned to impatience—­to a proud incredulity.

And now she felt the calm reaction as though, unbidden, an ugly dream, passing, had shadowed her unawakened senses for a moment, and passed away.

As long as they lived there was nothing to be done.  Endurance could cease only with death.  What was there to fear?  She asked herself, waiting half contemptuously for an answer.  But her unknown self had now subsided into the obscurity from whence it rose.  The Phantom of the Future was laid.

CHAPTER XXIII

A CAPITULATION

As Hamil left the garden Malcourt sauntered into view, halted, then came forward.

“I’m glad to see you,” he said pleasantly.

“Thank you.”