could ask later for a fresh glass of wine without seeming unduly
eager. And it was impossible for him to talk at any length without some
liquid to moisten the dry mucous membranes of his mouth.

"You see," he went on, "one needs strong assistance in shaking off a
thing like this. I've come to that, Daphne. Gaynor has been a devilish
good sort through it all, but one ally isn't enough. A Triple
Alliance"--he smiled at her--"is what is needed for this war."

Sophy felt dazed with gladness. Then shame seized her as she thought
that she might have "deserted"--might have missed this wonderful moment,
so far greater than mere happiness.

"Do you mean that you will let me help you, Cecil? That you will let me
fight--it--with you?"

"What else could I mean?"

She was speechless. She hardly dared to breathe. She might wake up.

"And--and you will--follow out the--instructions?"

Chesney's eyebrows flicked together for an instant, then smoothed again.

"Whose instructions?" he asked calmly.

She just paused, then said timidly:

"Dr. Carfew's, Cecil."

He felt the subdued billow of his rage heave again. It calmed under his
fierce resolve.

"What were they?" he asked.

She explained, almost whispering in her shyness and anxiety at having to
name such things to him.

The wave rose again. He rode it with a short laugh.

"So I'm to be fattened like a holiday ox!" he said. "Incarcerated and
made plump for Virtue's altar!"

He laughed again, closing his eyes. When he opened them he looked grave
and very serious.

"Sophy," he said, "with the dilemma comes generally a way of escape for
the imaginative." (How strange! he was paraphrasing the very quotation
that Father Raphael had made to her that morning. She listened
breathlessly.) "I confess frankly that I would not submit for a moment
to this sanatorium idea. I know myself too well. I should enter it a
temporary invalid and leave it a confirmed lunatic." (This phrase
pleased him very much, especially when he saw by her expression that it
had impressed her.) "I am not of the stuff from which 'good patients'
are made. I should probably strangle my attendants and take French leave
through a window. But"--he looked at her consideringly--"I am perfectly
willing to put myself in your hands, and Gaynor's--you have talked with
Gaynor, I suppose?"

He put this last question casually but with shrewd intent. Sophy's
caution was at once alert. She had determined that he shou