the example of the patriarchs, some foreign royal families, and many
respectable Turks; it is useless to plead that the love is deep and
holy love, for which a man or woman might well live and die, or to show
extenuating circumstances in the fact of loneliness, need of sympathy,
and that the existing marriage is a hollow sham. The rule is clear. A
man may do most things except cheat at cards or run away in action; a
woman may break half-a-dozen hearts, or try to break them, and finally
put herself up at auction and take no harm at all--but neither of them
may in any event do _this_.

Not that Geoffrey, to do him justice, had any such intentions. Most
men are incapable of plots of that nature. If they fall, it is when the
voice of conscience is lost in the whirlwind of passion, and counsel
is darkened by the tumultuous pleadings of the heart. Their sin is
that they will, most of them, allow themselves to be put in positions
favourable to the development of these disagreeable influences. It is
not safe to light cigarettes in a powder factory. If Geoffrey had done
what he ought to have done, he would never have gone to Bryngelly, and
there would have been no story to tell, or no more than there usually
is.

At length Mr. Granger and his guest reached Bryngelly; there was nobody
to meet them, for nobody knew that they were coming, so they walked up
to the Vicarage. It was strange to Geoffrey once more to pass by the
little church through those well-remembered, wind-torn pines and see
that low long house. It seemed wonderful that all should still be just
as it was, that there should be no change at all, when he himself had
seen so much. There was Beatrice's home; where was Beatrice?

He passed into the house like a man in a dream. In another moment he
was in the long parlour where he had spent so many happy hours, and
Elizabeth was greeting him. He shook hands with her, and as he did so,
noticed vaguely that she too was utterly unchanged. Her straw-coloured
hair was pushed back from the temples in the same way, the mouth wore
the same hard smile, her light eyes shone with the same cold look; she
even wore the same brown dress. But she appeared to be very pleased to
see him, as indeed she was, for the game looked well for Elizabeth. Her
father kissed her hurriedly, and bustled from the room to lock up his
borrowed cash, leaving them together.

Somehow Geoffrey's conversational powers failed him. Where was Beatrice?
sh