e find out from
the R.A.C. where he is, and ask them to send this note to him. I am
ever so grateful, Horace.'

'I suppose,' he said, looking at the envelope, 'that this means the--the
finish of my chances?'

She answered the question by wishing him good luck in France, but there
was a strange tremulousness in the softly spoken words.

He put out his hand shyly. 'Good-night, old girl,' he said, smiling with
a sort of rueful boyishness.

She took his proffered hand, and then, obeying an impulse, stooped and
pressed her burning cheek against it. 'Good-night, Horace,' she said
softly. 'I hope you'll come back safe to be a fine husband for some nice
girl.'

When he had gone, and his footsteps died away, she returned to the table.
Burying her face in her hands, she fought back the tears which surged to
the surface. Her love for Dick, her own loneliness, a mad joy in the
thought of seeing Selwyn again, a motherly pity for Maynard, a fury
towards Marian, an incomprehensible yearning--she felt that her heart was
bursting, but could not have said herself whether it was with grief or
with joy.

III.

From the time that Austin Selwyn received the note there was nothing else
in his mind--as in Elise's--but the coming meeting. As playwrights
planning a scene, each went through the encounter in prospect a dozen
times, reading into it the play of emotions which was almost certain to
dominate the affair. Although completely ignorant of her motive in
writing to him, Selwyn invented a hundred different reasons--only to
discard them all. Nor was Elise more able to satisfy herself as to the
outcome of the meeting. It was not his actions that were difficult to
forecast, but her own. Would her dislike of him be intensified? Would
she experience again the momentary rapture of that summer afternoon?

It was fortunate that another lover had appeared for Marian, so that the
desertion of Maynard did not leave her moping untidily about the place.
She was one of those women who are so singularly lacking in
self-sufficiency that, except when in the company of men, they are as
fiat as champagne from which the sparkle has departed.

It so happened, therefore, that Elise was again alone the following
evening, dreading Selwyn's arrival, yet impatient of delay.

A few minutes after eight she heard him knock, and going to the street
door, opened it for him. The night was a vapourish, miserable one,
blurring his figure into indi