he evening when she had heard of Edith Morton's
engagement. Try as she would to live in the present, and avoid vain
imaginings, she could not blind herself to a certain change in Piers,
which seemed to increase rather than diminish. It was not a lessening
of love; never had she known him more devoted, more passionately her
own; but in his tenderness was an element of sorrow, of self-reproach,
which chilled her heart. Piers was sorry for her! Some thing was
working in his mind, the knowledge of which must give her pain. What
could it be?

The revelation came one evening after she had been located for some
weeks in the Gloucester _menage_, and for all her forebodings, found her
unprepared.

"Vanna, I have something to tell you to-night. I have been trying to
say it for some time. Darling, can you be brave?"

Vanna looked at him sharply. They were sitting together on a sofa drawn
up before the fire, and the kindly glow hid the sudden whitening of her
cheeks. She leant back against the pillows, feeling faint and sick with
the rapid beating of her heart.

"Not--very, Piers! Tell me quickly. Don't wait."

"Vanna, I'm going abroad."

Her eyes dilated with surprise. This was not what she had expected.
Compared with the greater dread, the announcement came almost as a
relief. She struggled with the oppression in her throat and breathed a
breathless, "Where?"

"To India. I have a chance. A junior partner is invalided home. I can
take his place for a few years. It is the best thing--I am sure of it.
I have made up my mind."

"Is it because you are--_tired_ of me, Piers?"

He turned upon her in passionate protest.

"Tired? Heaven knows I am tired; tired to the soul of waiting for the
woman I love; of eternal fighting against self! It's more than I can
bear. I can't go on without some change, some break."

"You would find it easier to leave me?"

He hesitated, shrinking, then braced himself to a painful effort.

"Yes! it would be easier. You think me brutal, but I am a man. I
cannot endure this life. If you cannot be my wife, I must go. It is
hard to part, but it will help us both, and after a year or two we can
begin afresh. I have been trying to tell you. I was thankful to know
you were to be here, with Jean, for I must sail soon. In a few weeks."

"Yes." Vanna had a sudden rending remembrance of the moment when she
sat in Dr Greatman's consulting-room, and heard her life laid waste.
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