ad never
seen him. He had announced his marriage to her in a short note containing
hardly any particulars--except that his wife was a student like himself,
and that he intended to live abroad and work. Some four years later, the
_Times_ contained the bare news, in the obituary column, of his wife's
death, and about a year afterwards he returned to England, an enormously
changed man, with that slight lameness, which seemed somehow to draw a
sharp, dividing line between the splendid, impulsive youth who had gone
abroad, and the reserved, and self-contained man of thirty-two--pessimist
and dilettante--who had returned. His lameness he ascribed to an accident
in the Alps, but would never say anything more about it; and his friends
presently learned to avoid the subject, and to forget the slight signs of
something unexplained which had made them curious at first.

In the intervening years before the war, Cynthia felt tolerably sure that
she had been his only intimate woman friend. His former susceptibility
seemed to have vanished. On the whole he avoided women's society. Some
years after his return he had inherited the title and the estates, and
might have been one of the most invited men in London had he wished to
be; while Cynthia could remember at least three women, all desirable, who
would have liked to marry him. The war had swept him more decidedly than
ever out of the ordinary current of society. He had made it both an
excuse and a shield. His work was paramount; and even his old friends had
lost sight of him. He lived and breathed for an important Committee of
the Admiralty, on which as time went on he took a more and more important
place. In the four years Cynthia had scarcely seen him more than half a
dozen times.

And now the war was over. It was May again, and glorious May with the
world all colour and song, the garden a wealth of blossom, and the nights
clear and fragrant under moon or stars. And here was Philip again--much
more like the old Philip than he had been for years--looking at her with
those enchanting blue eyes of his, and asking her to do something for
him. No wonder Cynthia's pulses were stirred. The night before, she had
come home depressed--very conscious that she had had no particular
success with him at dinner, or afterwards. This unexpected _tete-a-tete_,
with its sudden touch of intimacy, made up for it all.

What could she do but assure him--trying hard not to be too
forthcoming--that she w