* * * * *

Julia said afterwards that receipts for the payment of such debts were unnecessary and never given; which was perhaps as well, for the one she received in the dusk was not of a kind recognised at law.  Could it afterwards have been produced it would not have proved the payment of money, though at the time it proved several things, principally the fact that, though friendship and comradeship are fine and excellent things, there are simple primitive passions which leap up through them and transfigure them and forget them, and it is these which make man man, and woman woman, and life worth living, and the world worth winning and losing, too, and bring the kingdom of heaven to earth again.

It also proved how exceedingly firmly a man who is in the habit of wearing a single eyeglass must screw it into his eye, for, as Julia remarked with some surprise, the one which interested her did not fall out.

* * * * *

Mr. Gillat came home with his fir-cones at a quarter to five.  And when he came he saw that, to him, most fascinating sight—­a motor-car, standing empty and quiet by the gate.  He looked at it with keen interest, then he looked round the empty landscape for its owner, and not seeing him, wondered if he was in the house.  He put away the cones and came to the conclusion that the owner was not there and the car was an abandoned derelict.  For which, perhaps, he may be forgiven, for there was no light at the parlour window and no sound of voices that he could hear from the kitchen; even when he opened the door and walked in he did not in the firelight see any one besides Julia at first.

“Julia,” he said, bringing in the astonishing news, “there is a motor-car outside!”

“Yes,” Julia answered composedly; “but it is going away soon.”

“Not very soon,” another voice spoke out of the gloom of the chimney corner, and Johnny jumped as he recognised it.

“Dear me!” he said; “dear me!  Mr. Rawson-Clew!  How do you do?  I am pleased to see you.”

The motor did not go away very soon; it stayed quite as long, rather longer, in fact, than Mr. Gillat expected.  And when it did go, he did not have the pleasure of seeing it start; he somehow got shut in the kitchen while Julia went out to the gate.

When she came back she shut the door carefully, then turned to him, and he noticed how her eyes were shining.  “Johnny,” she said, “I am a selfish beast; I am going to leave you.  Not yet, oh, not yet, but one day.”

Johnny stared a moment, then said, “Of course, oh, of course, to be sure—­to live with your mother, she’ll want you.  A wonderful woman.”

“Not to live with my mother,” Julia said emphatically.  “Sit down and I will tell you all about it.”

And she told, slowly and suitably, fearing that he would hardly understand the wonderful goodness of fate to her.  But she need not have been afraid; he took her meaning at once, far quicker than she expected, for he saw no wonder in it, only a very great goodness for the man who had won her, and a great and radiant happiness for himself in the happiness that had come to her.  As for his loneliness, he never thought of that, why should he?  Of course she would leave him, it was the right and proper thing to do; she would leave him anyhow.