It came to this, then.  Henceforth he must remember that, however near his intimacy with Gilbert, there must be no playing at friendship with Gilbert’s wife.  Friendship was impossible.  That golden-haired girl had a power over him which, if ever so slightly and thoughtlessly exercised, might drive him into acts of insanity.  He had seen her three times—­this is Sunday night, remember—­and yet the thought of Annabel was like a pale ghost beside his thought of her.  He had till now suspected that his nature was not framed for passion; a few weeks had taught him that, if he allowed passion to take hold upon him, no part of his soul could escape the flame.

Two days had passed since then.  On two successive mornings he had been alone with Thyrza; one evening he had spent at a concert, for the mere sake of being where Thyrza was, and feeling emotions such as he knew she would feel.  ’No playing at friendship with Gilbert’s wife.’  And he had himself held out his band to her, had asked her to address him familiarly, had talked of things which brought them into closer communion, had—­yes—­had bidden her keep their interviews a secret from Gilbert.  Had insanity begun?

A piece of folly; nothing else.  As he walked towards Westminster, he viewed the situation, or tried to view it, as it is put in the second paragraph of this chapter.  He had got into a very disagreeable position; he really must find some becoming way out of it; Thyrza was a silly girl to come a second time; of course the appointment for the following morning must not be kept.  There was no harm in it all, none whatever, but—­

Bah!  The worst had come about; the miserable fate had declared itself; he was in love with Thyrza Trent!

He entered the Abbey.  He seated himself in a shadowed place.  Alone?  Whose then was the voice that spoke to him unceasingly, and the hand which he was holding, which stirred his blood so with its warmth?  ’Put aside every thought of the living fact; say that there is no Gilbert Grail in the world.  You and I—­you, Thyrza, my sweet-eyed, my beautiful—­sit here side by side and hold each other’s hands.  Your voice has become very low and reverent, as befits the place, as befits the utterance of love such as this you say you bear me.  What can I answer you, my golden one?  Only, in voice low as your own, breathe that the world is barren but for you, that to the last drop of my heart’s blood I love and worship you!  A poor girl, a worker with her hands, untaught—­you say that?  A woman, pure of soul, with loveliness for your heritage, with possibilities imaginable in every ray of your eyes, in every note of the rare music of your voice!’

Even so.  In the meantime, this happens to be Westminster Abbey, where a working man, one Gilbert Grail, has often walked and sought solace from the bitterness of his accursed lot, where he has thought of a young girl who lives above him in the house, and who, as often as she passes him, is like a gleam of southern sky somehow slipped into the blank hideousness of a London winter.  Hither he has doubtless come to try and realise that fate has been so merciful to him that he longs to thank some unknown deity and cry that all is good.  Hither he will come again, with one whom he calls his wife—­