y mean--Dane! have you
thought for a moment what it _would_ really mean? Of course you will
have to leave Chumley."

"Is it `of course'?"

Her eyes rebuked him for his weakness.

"It would be _wicked_ to stay. The Squire would never have you in his
house if he knew, but he would _not_ know, and he would keep worrying
you to go... if you stayed away you would have to lie and pretend; if
you went, it would be just the same--lies and pretence! And it would
get worse, not better. There could be no happiness meeting each other
like that. Only misery and deceit. Think of what it would be, and then
of the other life, the life with me... Doing right... Comfort.
_Peace_."

The tears came now, and rolled down her cheeks. She looked very young,
and pitiful, and appealing, with her hand stretched out towards him, the
hand on which shone the ring he had given!

Dane took that hand and folded it between his own, he was touched into
tenderness by the girl's clinging devotion, and his conscience told him
that she was right in her prophecies. He was one of the many Englishmen
whose religion amounted to a determination to be straight in their
dealings with their fellows. He knew himself to be guilty of many
failings, but it had seemed inconceivable that he could ever stoop to
double dealing, far less to the extremity of deceit involved in making
love to the wife of a friend. Six months ago had such a case been
presented to him he would have tolerated no excuse, no palliation, would
have poured forth condemnation with relentless lips, but now... God
knew his ideals were unchanged, God knew he wished to do the right, but
he was no longer confident of his own strength. If in the future he
found himself alone with Cassandra, and she looked at him as she had
looked for that one breathless moment, if her hand clung again to his,
as it had clung, what about honour then, what about loyalty to his
friend, and fealty to the girl to whom he was engaged? By the beat in
his heart, by the throb in his veins, he knew that such considerations
would be but straws upon the wind, to be hurled aside by the rushing
forces of nature. Despicable, base, unworthy it might be, but if that
moment came, it would find Cassandra in his arms!

It came to this then, that there was only one course open to him as an
honourable man, and that course was--flight! He must leave Chumley, put
a barrier of distance between himself and his temptation, and