we seemed to drop straight back
into our former jolly relations, and for the time I almost forgot that
they had ever been interrupted. In spite of all she had been through
since, Joyce, at the bottom of her heart, was just the same as she had
been in the old days--impulsive, joyous, and utterly unaffected. All
her bitterness and sadness seemed to slip away with her grown-up
manner; and catching her infectious happiness, I too laughed and joked
and talked as cheerfully and unconcernedly as though we were in truth
back in Chelsea with no hideous shadow hanging over our lives. I even
found myself telling her stories about the prison, and making fun of
one of the chaplain's sermons on the beauties of justice. At the time
I remembered it had filled me with nothing but a morose fury.

It was the little clock on the mantlepiece striking a quarter to three
which brought us back to the realities of the present.

"I must go, Joyce," I said reluctantly, "or I shall be running into
some of your Duchesses."

She nodded. "And I've got to do my hair by three, and turn myself back
from Joyce into Mademoiselle Vivien--if I can. Oh, Neil, Neil; it's a
funny, mad world, isn't it!" She lifted up my hand and moved it softly
backwards and forwards against her lips. Then, suddenly jumping up,
she went into the next room, and came back with my hat and stick.

"Here are your dear things," she said; "and I shall see you tomorrow
evening at Tommy's. I shan't leave him a note--somebody might open it;
I shall just let you go and find him yourself. Oh, I should love to be
there when he realizes who it is."

"I know just what he'll do," I said. "He'll stare at me for a minute;
then he'll say quite quietly, 'Well, I'm damned,' and go and pour
himself out a whisky."

She laughed gaily. "Yes, yes," she said. "That's exactly what will
happen." Then with a little change in her voice she added: "And you
will be careful, won't you, Neil? I know you're quite safe; no one
can possibly recognize you; but I'm frightened all the same--horribly
frightened. Isn't it silly of me?"

I kissed her tenderly. "My Joyce," I said, "I think you have got the
bravest heart in the whole world."

And with this true if rather inadequate remark I left her.

I had plenty to think about during my walk back to Victoria. Exactly
what result the sharing of my secret with Tommy and Joyce would have,
it was difficult to forecast, but it opened up a disquieting field of
possi