“You are early!” she exclaimed.  “No bad news, I hope?”

“No.  But I want a little quiet talk with you.  Of course it’s absurd to come at this hour.  You know I lunch here to-day, and I couldn’t have gone through with it without seeing you in private.  I’m in a queer state of mind; very much upset; in fact, I never felt such need of a true friend to consult.”

Constance kept her eyes fixed upon him.  She had been up for a couple of hours, reading in the French book which had reached her yesterday.  The same volume had occupied her till long after midnight.  Her face showed the effects of over-study.

“Tell me all about it,” she said, with voice subdued to the note of intimacy, and look in which there shone an indulgent kindliness.

“You have often said that you wished me well, that you desired to help me in my career.”

“Have I not done more than say it?” returned the other, softly.

“Indeed you have!  Few women would have been capable of such self-sacrifice on a friend’s behalf.  You know the law of human nature; we always make old kindness a reason for demanding new.  Again I am come to ask your help, and again it involves heroism on your part.”

The listener’s face grew troubled; her lips lost their suavity.  Lashmar’s eyes fell before her look.

“I feel ashamed,” he went on, with an uneasy movement of his hands.  “It’s too bad to expect so much of you.  You have more pride than most people, yet I behave to you as if you didn’t know the meaning of the word.  Do, I beg, believe me when I say that I am downright ashamed, and that I hardly know how to tell you what has happened.”

Constance did not open her lips; they were sternly compressed.

“I want you,” Dyce continued, “first of all to consent to the termination of our formal engagement.  Of course,” he hastened to add, “that step in itself is nothing to you.  Indeed, you will be rather glad of it than otherwise; it relieves you from an annoying and embarrassing situation, which only your great good-nature induced you to accept.  But I ask more than that.  I want it to be understood that our engagement had ended when I last left Rivenoak.  Can you consent to this?  Will you bear me out when I break the news to Lady Ogram?”

“You propose to do that yourself?” asked Constance, with frigid sarcasm.

“Yes, I shall do it myself.  I am alone responsible for what has happened, and I must face the consequences.”

“Up to a certain point, you mean,” remarked the same pungent voice.

“It’s true, I ask your help in that one particular.”

“You say that something has happened.  Is it within my privilege to ask what, or must I be content to know nothing more?”

“Constance, don’t speak like that?” pleaded Dyce.  “Be generous to the end!  Haven’t I behaved very frankly all along?  Haven’t we talked with perfect openness of all I did?  Don’t spoil it all, now at the critical moment of my career.  Be yourself, generous and large-minded!”