He is still sitting at the table thinking.  His head is bent a little down, his hands are resting on the table behind him.  Will she ever forgive or forget?

    “My love is like the sea,
    As changeful and as free;
    Sometimes she’s angry, sometimes rough,
    Yet oft she’s smooth and calm enough—­
    Ay, much too calm for me!”

The pretty words come to him as if describing her; “sometimes she’s angry”:  with him she had been often angry, but now, looking back on it, what sweetest anger it had been, anger that cried aloud for tender arms in which to sink and lose itself for ever.  Oh, if only—­only—­she would be angry with him once again, he might so argue with her that she would forgive him, and, perhaps, take him, worthless as he is, to that warm heart of hers.

Mechanically he slips from the table to a standing position.  He will be in town to-morrow.  He will make one last effort to see her.  Margaret will aid him, and, after all, what is there to separate them?  Hescott is in South Africa (there was nothing in that really—­he had made an ass of himself over that, more or less).  And Marian Bethune?  Well, Tita must know by this time that that old folly is at an end for ever—­even Marian herself has tired of it.

He turns slowly; the door has opened behind him.  The lamp is a little low, and he has to look closely into the gloom at the end of the room to see who has come in.  One of the servants, no doubt.  He looks again.

“The post, Peter?” says he expectantly.  But it is not Peter who comes forward.

_ “Maurice!"_ says Marian Bethune, in a tone that is barely above a whisper.

She is with him now, her hands upon his arms, her eyes riveted upon his.

CHAPTER XXIII.

HOW RYLTON’S EVIL GENIUS COMES TO HIM AND SPEAKS SWEET TREACHERIES WITHIN HIS EAR; AND HOW HE RENOUNCES HER AND ALL HER DEEDS.

“You!” says Rylton.  His voice is as low as her own, and strange—­it sounds strange even to himself.  Her hands are lying on his arms—­the little hands he used to call snowflakes long ago.  Great heaven! how long ago!

He does not repulse her—­that is beyond him—­but in this new strange voice of his there is assuredly no welcome.  He feels choking.  The dead past is so horribly dead that he cannot bear to look upon it.  He feels cold—­benumbed.  What is he to say to her, or she to him?  Must this battle be fought?  And through all this weary wondering there is ever present with him a strong fear.

If Tita should hear of this—­if she should learn that Marian was here to-night—­with him—­alone!  His heart sinks within him.  Not all the waters of Jordan could wash him clean in her eyes.

A sudden anger against this woman rises within him.  Has she not been his undoing from first to last?  Gently, but with determination, he lifts her fingers from his arms.