* * * * *

Once outside, however, in the broad evening light, with the cool wind
from the sea touching her face and the colours of the girls' bright
dresses on the road growing faint, like flowers in a garden at sunset,
Caroline began to feel somewhat less bitterly towards Mrs. Creddle.
She remembered that her aunt had been in service as a girl, and that no
self-respecting maid-servant of those days would have walked out late
at night with a man who was a relative of their mistress, nor would any
decent-living gentleman have suggested such a thing. But Aunt Creddle
forgot that she was a business girl--self-poised, making her own
position in the world as she chose.

Still her pride continued to smart even when she reached the little
Thorhaven picture house. She sat down in the semi-darkness and fixed
her eyes mechanically on the screen before her, but very little of
Winnie's clear happiness communicated itself to her. After a while,
however, she did begin to feel less miserable, because no one can be
the cause of that rippling joy in a delighted child without being
touched by it a little. But her main feeling was relief. At last she
was free to be as utterly wretched as she liked. No one could peer
into her mind as she sat there, apparently enjoying herself; she was
wrapped in a secrecy so deep that no human being could touch even the
fringe of what she was thinking about, for Winnie's remarks were only
like the chirp of a bird on the window-sill when the window is closed.

But beneath all her restless unhappiness she was still certain that
every word Godfrey said to her on Thursday night was sincere. A sort
of nobleness in her own love--despite the flippant beginnings of
it--made her able to believe that he had not considered money or
ambition any more than she had done. It was the defenceless kindness
of Laura herself which had conquered them both. They were unable
deliberately to deal her such a blow.

But across her thoughts came the legend on the screen after the whirl
of moving figures. At first she followed the words without being aware
of them; when all at once they leapt into her consciousness with a sort
of shock.

"I swear I want to marry you!"

Immediately on that a man appeared on the screen with a girl in his
arms, but Caroline was not going to let her mind accept any possible
relationship between this story and her own. Then Aunt Creddle's
speech forced itself th