ould rest." And Captain
Anthony frowned. Then sharply, "You stay here, Mr. Powell. I shall want
you presently."

As a matter of fact Powell had not moved. Flora did not mind his
presence. He himself had the feeling of being of no account to those
three people. He was looking at Mrs. Anthony as unabashed as the
proverbial cat looking at a king. Mrs. Anthony glanced at him. She did
not move, gripped by an inexplicable premonition. She had arrived at the
very limit of her endurance as the object of Anthony's magnanimity; she
was the prey of an intuitive dread of she did not know what mysterious
influence; she felt herself being pushed back into that solitude, that
moral loneliness, which had made all her life intolerable. And then, in
that close communion established again with Anthony, she felt--as on that
night in the garden--the force of his personal fascination. The passive
quietness with which she looked at him gave her the appearance of a
person bewitched--or, say, mesmerically put to sleep--beyond any notion
of her surroundings.

After telling Mr. Powell not to go away the captain remained silent.
Suddenly Mrs. Anthony pushed back her loose hair with a decisive gesture
of her arms and moved still nearer to him. "Here's papa up yet," she
said, but she did not look towards Mr. Smith. "Why is it? And you? I
can't go on like this, Roderick--between you two. Don't."

Anthony interrupted her as if something had untied his tongue.

"Oh yes. Here's your father. And . . . Why not. Perhaps it is just as
well you came out. Between us two? Is that it? I won't pretend I don't
understand. I am not blind. But I can't fight any longer for what I
haven't got. I don't know what you imagine has happened. Something has
though. Only you needn't be afraid. No shadow can touch you--because I
give up. I can't say we had much talk about it, your father and I, but,
the long and the short of it is, that I must learn to live without
you--which I have told you was impossible. I was speaking the truth. But
I have done fighting, or waiting, or hoping. Yes. You shall go."

At this point Mr. Powell who (he confessed to me) was listening with
uncomprehending awe, heard behind his back a triumphant chuckling sound.
It gave him the shudders, he said, to mention it now; but at the time,
except for another chill down the spine, it had not the power to destroy
his absorption in the scene before his eyes, and before hi