“No,” he said, “I don’t forget the fact.  But—­the reason cuts deep.  I want to know——­” he hesitated—­“is all this ... antipathy you can’t get over—­you and your mother—­the ordinary average attitude?  Or is it ... exceptionally acute?”

She drew in her lip.  Why would he force her to hurt him more?  For they had got beyond polite evasion.  Clearly he wanted the truth.

“Mother’s is acute,” she said, not looking at him.  “Mine—­I’m afraid—­is ... the ordinary average feeling against it.  The exception would be to find a girl—­especially out here—­who could honestly ... get over it——­”

“Unless—­she cared in the real big way,” Roy interposed; his own pain goading him to an unfair hit at her.  “To be blunt, I suppose it’s the case—­of Lance over again.  You’ve found ... you don’t love me enough——?”

“And you——?” she struck back, turning on him the cool deliberate look of early days.  “Do you love me enough?  Do you care—­as he did?”

“No—­not as he did.  I’ve cared blindly, passionately—­somehow we didn’t seem to meet on any other plane.  In fact, it ... it was realising how magnificently Lance cared ... and how little you seemed able to appreciate the fact, that made me feel—­as I did, down there.  In a sense, he’s been barring the way ... ever since....”

“Roy! How strange!” She faced him now, the mask of repression flung aside.  “It’s been the same—­with me!”

“With you?”

“Yes.  Ever since I heard ... he was gone, he has haunted me to distraction.  I’ve seemed to see him and feel him in quite a different way.”

“Good Lord!” Roy murmured—­incredulous, amazed.  “Human beings are the queerest things.  If only ... you’d felt like that ... sooner——?”

“Yes—­if only I had——!” she lamented frankly, looking straight before her.

“I’m glad—­you told me,” said her unaccountable lover.

“I nearly—­didn’t.  But when you said that, I felt it might—­ease things.  And that was his great wish—­wasn’t it?—­to ease things ... for us both.  Oh—­was there ever any one ... quite like him?”

Tears stood in her eyes, and Roy contemplating her—­seeing, for the first time, something beyond her beauty—­felt drawn to her in an altogether new way; and sitting there they talked of him quietly, like friends, rather than lovers on the verge of parting for good.

As real to them, almost, as themselves, was the spirit of the man who had loved both more greatly than they were capable of loving one another; who, in life, had refused to stand between them; yet, in death, had subtly thrust them apart....

Then there came a pause.  They remembered....

“We’re rather a strange pair—­of lovers,” she murmured shakily.  “I feel, now, as if I can’t bear letting you go.  And yet ... it wouldn’t last.—­Dearest, will you be sensible ... and finish your tea?”