own; and
he was sure that she would blossom under the soft skies of Dorset to a
rarer beauty. She came in, and he got up to meet her. She was in black,
with white cuffs at her wrists and a lawn collar round her neck. They
shook hands.

"Have you been waiting long?"

"No. Ten minutes. Are you hungry?"

"Not very."

"Let's sit here for a bit, shall we?"

"If you like."

They sat quietly, side by side, without speaking. Philip enjoyed having
her near him. He was warmed by her radiant health. A glow of life seemed
like an aureole to shine about her.

"Well, how have you been?" he said at last, with a little smile.

"Oh, it's all right. It was a false alarm."

"Was it?"

"Aren't you glad?"

An extraordinary sensation filled him. He had felt certain that Sally's
suspicion was well-founded; it had never occurred to him for an instant
that there was a possibility of error. All his plans were suddenly
overthrown, and the existence, so elaborately pictured, was no more than
a dream which would never be realised. He was free once more. Free! He
need give up none of his projects, and life still was in his hands for him
to do what he liked with. He felt no exhilaration, but only dismay. His
heart sank. The future stretched out before him in desolate emptiness. It
was as though he had sailed for many years over a great waste of waters,
with peril and privation, and at last had come upon a fair haven, but as
he was about to enter, some contrary wind had arisen and drove him out
again into the open sea; and because he had let his mind dwell on these
soft meads and pleasant woods of the land, the vast deserts of the ocean
filled him with anguish. He could not confront again the loneliness and
the tempest. Sally looked at him with her clear eyes.

"Aren't you glad?" she asked again. "I thought you'd be as pleased as
Punch."

He met her gaze haggardly. "I'm not sure," he muttered.

"You are funny. Most men would."

He realised that he had deceived himself; it was no self-sacrifice that
had driven him to think of marrying, but the desire for a wife and a home
and love; and now that it all seemed to slip through his fingers he was
seized with despair. He wanted all that more than anything in the world.
What did he care for Spain and its cities, Cordova, Toledo, Leon; what to
him were the pagodas of Burmah and the lagoons of South Sea Islands?
America was here and now. It seemed to him that all his life he had
followed t