She turned off the lights, and they went upstairs together to their several rooms.

Once alone, Innocent flung off her dainty ball attire,—­released her bright hair from the pins that held it bound in rippling waves about her shapely head, and slipping on a loose white wrapper sat down to think.  She had to realise the unpleasing fact that against her own wish and will she had become involved in mysteries,—­ secrets which she dared not, for the sake of others, betray.  Her parentage could not be divulged, because her father was Pierce Armitage, the worshipped memory of Miss Leigh’s heart,—­while her mother, Lady Blythe, occupied a high social position which must not be assailed.  And now—­now, Amadis de Jocelyn was her lover!—­ yet no one must know, because he did not wish it.  For some cause or other which she could not determine, he insisted on secrecy.  So she was meshed in nets of others’ weaving, and could not take a step to disentangle herself and stand clear.  Of her own accord she would have been frank and open as the daylight,—­but from the first, a forward fate appeared to have taken delight in surrounding her with deceptions enforced by the sins of others.  Her face burned as she thought of Jocelyn’s passionate kisses—­she must hide all that joy!—­it had already become almost a guilty secret.  He was the first man that had ever kissed her since her “Dad” died,—­the first that had ever kissed her as a lover.  Her mind flew suddenly and capriciously back to Briar Farm—­to Robin Clifford who had longed to kiss her, and yet had refused to do so unless she could have loved him.  She had never loved him—­no!—­and yet the thought of him just now gave her a thrill of remorseful tenderness.  She knew in herself at last what love could mean,—­and with that knowledge she realised what Robin must have suffered.

“To love without return—­without hope!” she mused—­“Oh, it would be torture!—­to me, death!  Poor Robin!”

Poor Robin, indeed!  He would not have dared to caress her with the wild and tender audacity of Amadis de Jocelyn!

“My love!” she whispered to the silence.—­“My love!” she repeated, as she knelt down to say her prayers, sending the adored and idealised name up on vibrations of light to the throne of the Most High,—­and “My love!” were the last words she murmured as she nestled into her little bed, her fair head on its white pillow looking like the head of one of Botticelli’s angels.  Her own success,—­her celebrity as a genius in literature,—­her dreams of fame—­these now were all as naught!—­less than the clouds of a night or the mists of a morning—­there was nothing for her in earth or heaven save “My love!”

CHAPTER V