ot--on all counts--be the greater wrong to make a
fetish of a bond so rashly forged.

To-day, very distinctly he was aware of the inner tug he had been trying
to ignore. And to-day it was more imperative; less easily stilled. Could
it be ... veritably, his mother, trying to reach him--and failing, for
the first time?

That thought prompted the test question--if _she_ were alive, how would
he feel about bringing Rose home as daughter-in-law, as mother of her
grandson ... the gift of gifts? If she were alive, could Rose herself
have faced the conjunction? And to him she was still verily alive--or
had been, till his infatuate passion had blinded him to everything but
one face, one form, one desire.

That night there came to him--on the verge of sleep--the old thrilling
sensation that she was there--yearning to him across an impassable
barrier. And this time he knew--with a bitter certainty--that the
barrier was within himself. Every nerve in him craved--as he had not
craved this long while--the unmistakable _sense_ of her that seemed gone
past recall. Desperately, he strained every faculty to penetrate the
resistant medium that withheld her from him--in vain.

Wearied out, with disappointment and futile effort, he fell
asleep--praying for a dream visitation to revive his shaken faith. None
came; and conviction seized him that none would come, until....

One could not, simultaneously, live on intimate terms with earth and
heaven. And Rose was earth in its most alluring guise. More: she had
awakened in him sensations and needs that, at the moment, she alone
could satisfy. But if it amounted to a choice; for him, there could be
no question....

* * * * *

Next day and the day after, a sharp return of fever kept him in bed: and
a touch of his father in him tempted him to write, sooner than face the
strain of a final scene. But moral cowardice was not among his failings;
also unquestionably--if irrationally--he wanted to see her, to hold her
in his arms once again....

On the third morning he sent her a note saying he was better; he would
be round for tea; and received a verbal answer. Miss Sahib sent her
salaam. She would be at home.

So, about half-past three, he rode out to the house on Elysium Hill,
wondering how--and, at moments, whether--he was going to pull it
through....

Her smile of welcome almost unmanned him. He simply did not feel fit for
the strain. It would be so much e