ising
higher and higher.

"But there's honour, dear, and duty. . . ." Peter's words floated up
to her on the shadowy billows which swayed towards her.

"Honour! Duty!"

There was a curious singing in her head. It sounded like the throb of
a myriad engines, rhythmically repeating again and again:

"Honour! Duty! Honour! Duty!"

The words grew fainter, vaguer, trailing off into a regular pulsation
that beat against her ears.

"_Honour_!" She thought she said it very loudly.

But all that Kitty and Roger heard was a little moan as Nan slipped to
the ground in a dead faint.

CHAPTER XXVIII

GOOD-BYE!

A chesterfield couch had been pulled well into the bay window of one of
Kitty's big rooms so that Nan, from the nest of cushions amid which she
lay, could see all that was passing in the street below. The warm May
sunshine poured into the room, revealing with painful clarity the
changes which the last three months had wrought in her. Never at any
time robust in appearance, she seemed the slenderest, frailest thing as
she lay there, the delicate angles of her face sharpened by fever and
weakness, her cheeks so hollowed that the violet-blue eyes looked
almost amazingly big and wide-open in her small face.

Kitty was sitting near her, a half-knitted jumper lying across her
knees, the inevitable cigarette in her hand, while Barry, who had
returned from Cannes some weeks ago--entirely unperturbed at finding
his new system a complete "wash-out"--leaned, big and debonair, against
the window.

"When are we going to Mallow?" asked Nan fretfully. "I'm so tired of
staring at those houses across the way."

Barry turned his head and regarded the houses opposite reflectively.

"They're not inspiring, I admit," he answered, "even though many of
them _are_ the London habitations of belted earls and marquises."

"We'll go to Mallow as soon as you like," interposed Kitty. "I think
you're quite fit to stand the journey now."

"Fit? Of course I'm fit. Only"--Nan's face clouded--"it will mean
your leaving town just when the season's in full swing. I shan't like
dragging you away."

"Season?" scoffed Kitty. "Season be blowed! The only thing that
matters is whether you're strong enough to travel."

She regarded Nan affectionately. The latter had no idea how
dangerously ill she had been. She remembered Roger's visit to the flat
perfectly clearly. But everything which followed had been more or less
a b