“I mean that I must, Greg, if I am not to go mad!”

“And where will you go?” she asked.

“Oh—­to Vera, to Elinor.”  She paused, frowning.  “Or away by myself,” she decided suddenly.  “Away from them all!”

“Rachael,” he said quickly, “will you come to my mother?”

Rachael smiled.  “To your mother!”

He read her incredulity in her voice.

“But she loves you,” he said eagerly.  “And she’d be—­we’d both be so proud to show people—­to prove—­that we knew where the right lay!”

“My dear Don Quixote,” she answered affectionately, “I love you for asking me!  But I will be better alone.  I must think, and plan.  I’ve made a mess of my life so far, Greg; I must take the next step carefully!”

He was clinging to her hands as she stood, in all her grave beauty, before him.

“If I hadn’t been such a bat, Rachael, all those eleven years ago!” he said, daringly, breathlessly.

“Have we known each other so long, Greg?”

“Ever since that first visit of yours with little Persis Pomeroy!  And I remember you so well, Rachael.  I remember that Bobby Governeur was enslaved!”

“Dear old Bobby!  But I don’t remember you, Greg!”

“Because I was thirty then, my dear, and you were seventeen!  I was just home from four years’ work in Germany; I was afraid of girls your age!”

“Afraid—­of me?” The three words were like a caress, like holding her in his arms.

“I’m afraid so!” he said, not quite steadily.  “I’m afraid I’ve always liked you too well.  I—­I care—­that you’re unhappy, that you’re unkindly treated.  I—­I—­wish I could do something, Rachael.”

“You do do something,” she said, deeply stirred in her turn.  “I’m--you don’t know how fond I am of you, Greg!”

For answer she felt his arms about her, and for a throbbing minute they stood so; Rachael braced lightly, her beautiful breast rising and falling, her breath coming quickly.  Her magnificent eyes, wide-open, like a frightened child’s, were fixed steadily upon him.  He caught the fragrance of her hair, of her fresh skin; he felt the softness and firmness of her slender arms.

“Rachael!” he said, in a sharp whisper.  “Don’t—­don’t say that—­if you don’t—­mean it!”

“Greg!” she answered, in the same tone.  “Don’t—­frighten me!”

Instantly she was free, and he was standing by the fire with folded arms, looking at her.

“You have missed love, and I have missed it,” Warren Gregory said presently.  “We’ll be patient, Rachael.  I’ll wait; we’ll both wait--”

“Greg!” she could only answer still in that stricken whisper, still pale.  She stood just as he had left her.

A silence fell between them.  The physician took out a cigarette from his gold case with trembling ringers.

“I’m a little giddy, Rachael,” he said after a moment.  “I—­on my honor I don’t know what’s happened to me!  You’re the most wonderful woman in the world—­I’ve always thought that—­but it never occurred to me—­the possibility—­”