ed up this afternoon."

If he found--and this was the question that he asked himself most
urgently--that Rachel really had, in the competent interpretation of the
term, "deserted" him for Breton, what would be his sensations? Being an
Englishman he would, of course, horsewhip the fellow, divorce Rachel and
lead a misanthropic but sensual existence for the rest of his days. But
here the wild strain in Roddy counted. That is exactly what Roddy would
not do. What was law for the man must be law also for the woman.

He had, on an earlier day, told her that were he to present her with a
thousand infidelities, yet he would love her best and most truly, and
therefore she must forgive him. Well, that should be true too for
her.... Any episode with Breton seemed only an incident in the pursuit
of her that Roddy had commenced on that day that he had married her.

And yet was not this readiness on his part to forgive her sprung from
his conviction that she would have told him had she had so much to
confess to him? Let her relations with Breton remain uncertain and
shifting, then she might have found justification for her silence; let
them once have found so definite a climax and she must have
spoken--Roddy had indeed advanced in his knowledge both of her and
himself since two years ago.

By the early afternoon he was in a pitiable state. Should he send notes
to the Duchess and Breton telling them both that he was too unwell, too
cross, too sleepy, too "anything" to see them? Should he retire to bed
and leave Peters to make his excuses? Should he disappear and tell
Rachel to deal with them? _What_ a scene there'd be between the three of
them!

His illness had made a difference to his nerve, lying there on one's
back took the grit away, gave one too much time to think, showed one
such momentous issues.

On the events of this afternoon might hang all his life and all
Rachel's!

His capture of her was indeed now to be put to the test!...

II

Rachel came into his room at four o'clock. She carried a great bunch of
violets and a paper parcel.

She smiled across the room at him; a cap of white fur on her head, and
the hand with the violets held also a large white muff.

"Roddy--I'm coming to have tea with you--alone. You'll be out to
everyone, won't you? But first, see what I've brought you."

She was dreadfully excited, he thought, as though she knew already the
kind of thing that awaited her. Her smile was nervous, and