ow she has. Serves me damned well right.
It's all I deserve." There was a little pause. "Well," he said,
"she's more than got her own back, if it's any consolation to her to
know it."

He felt as if there were a knife being turned in his heart. His whole
soul revolted against this enforced pain. He had never suffered like
this in all his life before. Even that night at the theatre, when
Cynthia Farrow had given him his _conge_, he had not suffered as now;
then, it had been more damage to his pride than his heart; but this--he
loved Christine--he knew now that he loved little Christine as he had
never loved any other woman, as he never would love anyone again.

He cursed himself for a blind fool. It goaded him to madness to think
of the happiness that had been his for the taking, and which he had let
fall to the ground. He clenched his teeth in impotent rage. When they
reached his rooms he threw his hat and coat aside, and began pacing up
and down as if he could not keep still for a moment. Life was
insufferable, intolerable; he could not imagine how he was going to get
through all the stretch of years lying in wait for him. He had
forgotten that the Great Horatio was coming home that night; the Great
Horatio had suddenly faded out of the picture; it was no longer a thing
of importance if his allowance were cut down, or stopped once and for
all. All he wanted was Christine--Christine. He would have given his
soul for her at that moment, for just one glimpse of the old trust and
love in her brown eyes, for just a sight of the happy smile with which
she had greeted him when they were first engaged. They had all been
his once, and now he had lost her forever.

Another man had taken and prized the treasure he had blindly thrown
away. Jimmy groaned as he paced up and down, up and down.

Sangster was pretending to read. He turned the pages of a magazine,
but he saw nothing of what was written there. In his own way he was as
unhappy as Jimmy, in his own way he was suffering tortures of doubt and
apprehension.

He did not know Kettering; had only seen him once at Upton House; but
he fully realised that the man had a strong personality, and one very
likely to hold and keep such a nature as Christine's.

But he could not bear to think of the shipwreck this meant for them
all. He could not believe that her love for Jimmy had died so
completely; she had loved him so dearly.

Jimmy came over to where he sat: