moking
and racking his brain, while his eyes perfunctorily scanned the
columns of the _Morning Post_.

The doings of the world and the misdoings of those in power,
earthquakes, shipwrecks, and rumours of wars--all these were as
nothing to him compared with the insignificant tangle of one man and
one woman among the whole seething, suffering throng. But concern
brought him no nearer to the unravelling of their tangle; and when the
time came to go he could think of nothing better than a direct appeal
to his friend.

Desmond still sat at the table, head in hand, absorbed in the
intricacies of military tactics.

Paul rose and went over to him. "I'm going now, old chap." The matter
of fact statement was made with indescribable gentleness. "I'll be
back in an hour or so. Wish to goodness you were coming too."

"Damned if you can wish it more than I do," Desmond answered without
looking up.

"Well then--come. Is it really--so impossible as you think?"

Desmond nodded decisively. "Can't you see it for yourself, man? Even
if she _was_ quit of that other confounded fellow, how could I face
telling her--the truth?"

For a moment Paul was silenced; not because he found the question
unanswerable, but because of that hidden knowledge which he might not
disclose, even to save his friend.

"My dear Theo," he said at last, "I know--and you know--that, sooner
than lose her, you could go through any kind of fire. Besides, I have
an idea she would understand----"

"So have I," Desmond answered gruffly, "that's the deuce of it all.
But it doesn't make a man less unworthy----"

"If it comes to that," urged the diplomatist, "are any of us worthy?"

Desmond flung up his head with an odd laugh.

"Possibly not! But there happen to be degrees of unfitness--yours and
mine for instance, you blind old bat! Go along now, and enjoy the good
you deserve. As for me--I have sinned and must take the consequences
without whining."

"There is a radical difference, Theo," Paul remarked quietly, "between
temptation and sin."

"Casuist!" was all the answer vouchsafed to him; and baffled--but not
yet defeated--he went out into the May sunlight, quite determined, for
once in his life, to take by storm the citadel that seemed proof
against capitulation.

Before reaching his destination he had devised a plan so simple and
obvious that it might have occurred to a child; and like a child he
gloried in his unaided achievement. The fact that it in