he early days of the December of that year, 1898, the first snow
fell.

Francis Breton, standing at his window high up in the Saxton Square
house, watched the first flakes, as they came, lingering, from the heavy
brooding sky; as he watched a great tide of unhappiness and restlessness
and discontent swept over him. His was a temperament that could be
raised to heaven and dashed to hell in a second of time; life never
showed him its true colours and his sensitive suspicion to the signs and
omens of the gods gave him radiant confidence and utter despair when
only a patient quiescence had been intended. During the last three
months he had risen and fallen and risen again, as the impulse to do
something magnificent somewhere interchanged with the impulse to do
something desperate--meanwhile nothing was done and, standing now
staring at the snow, he realized it.

He had never, in all his days, known how to moderate. If he might not be
the hero of society then must he be the famous outcast, in one fashion
or another London must ring with his name.

And yet now here had he been in London since the end of April and
nothing had occurred, no steps, beyond that first letter to his
grandmother, had he taken. He had not even responded to the advances
made to him by his old associates, he had seen no one save Christopher,
Brun once or twice, the Rands and his cousin Rachel.

Throughout this time he had done what he had never done before, he had
waited. For what?

A little perhaps he had expected that the family would take some step.
Looking back now he knew that the shadow of his grandmother had been
over it all. He had always seen her when he had contemplated any action,
seen her, and, deny it as he might, feared her. She confused his mind;
he had never been very readily clear as to reasons and instincts--he had
never paused for a period long enough to allow clear thinking, but now,
through all these weeks, he had been conscious that that same clear
thinking would have come to him had not his grandmother clouded his
mind. He felt her as one feels, in a dream, some power that prevents our
movement, holds us fascinated--so now he was held.

The other great force persuading him to inaction was Rachel Beaminster,
now Rachel Seddon.

Long before his return to England the thought of this cousin of his had
often come to him. He would speculate about her. She, like himself, was
by birth half a rebel, she _must_ be--She _must_ be. He