nd, if so, how were his
trembling steps to be guided aright? Carefully she started to weigh
Sir Willoughby's words....

"What concerns me most is how to deal with his condition of mind when
the fever has run its course. From what I've seen, and from what Heron
has told me, I'm satisfied that it is vital that Gramarye should never
again enter into his life. That park, or estate, or whatever it is,
had taken such an unhealthy hold upon his imagination, that he was
half-way to insanity. If Gramarye is permitted again to take the
helm.... Well, the ship is half-way across--half-way across those
narrow straits which divide reason from lunacy. We've got to take the
helm and put it over just as hard as ever we can. You understand? In
a word, if, for instance, Major Lyveden were to revisit Gramarye, I
think the game would be up. That, of course, can't happen. But it is,
in my opinion, of the highest importance, not only that no reference to
the place should be made before him, but that we should do our utmost
to direct his attention to other matters. We can't expunge the last
four months from his memory--I wish we could. Half the asylums in
England would be empty if we could do that. But we can avert our eyes
from the record, and we can try to avert his."

'Try to avert his.' How? Anthony was not an infant, to be beguiled
with a rattle when he cried for a blade. And if Gramarye was proposing
'again to take the helm,' who was to stop her? Had Miss French put
that question to Sir Willoughby, he would have replied, "Yourself."
For that reason she had not asked him. Again and again he had insisted
that, if the mischief was to be mended at all, it would be at her
hand....

There were times when the thought terrified her, when the panic fear of
the condemned sat in her eyes. For Valerie knew it was just. It was
she who had brought a gallant gentleman to this pass--she who had
smashed the exquisite wonder of melody their hearts had danced to--she
who had hacked asunder the silken bridge of love and sent her lover
into the arms of Gramarye.

Gramarye!

Her solitary visit to the park stood out of the girl's memory like a
snow-covered peak, vivid and frozen. There was no mercy there. What
was far worse, there was an unearthly appeal. Flesh and blood were one
thing, but a wild mystery of woodland, the desolate grandeur of a
ruined park, the majestic havoc of a proud estate--these were another
matter. Looking