They reached the small marquee, two or three wicker chairs lay about the
lawn outside it, and they sat down. Now for the first time he could form
a just estimate of his companion's beauty, and he experienced some
difficulty in removing his glance from her. The stay at Brineweald had
tanned her face, and deepened the warm colour of her skin, and though
the recent vigils had somewhat deadened the brilliance of her eyes, they
still flashed with a dignity and independence that were a warning to any
one who might have thoughts of perpetrating an indiscretion in her
presence.

Lord Henry tugged at his mesh, and wondered whether he had better
proceed. This girl's secret, wrapped as it was in her pride and, worse
still, in her vanity, seemed a very sacred thing to penetrate. Never had
he felt that divination could lie so close to desecration as when he
watched this magnificent creature before him, making her last proud
stand in front of the humiliating cause of her breakdown. His heart went
out to her, however; he suddenly felt the impulse, not of the trained
psychologist to cure a patient, but of a gallant knight to save a
beautiful lady in distress. He was prepared to use every weapon in order
to defeat the dragon, and as his strongest weapons seemed to be his deep
knowledge of the human soul, and his long experience in curing it, he
proceeded on his old lines. But how different he was, notwithstanding,
from the Lord Henry of the Ashbury Sanatorium none knew better than
himself. He could no longer be cool and collected. He must fight with
the girl against the canker in her heart as if he himself also felt the
pain of it. He must tear it out and save her peace of mind, like the
therapeutist that he was; but he could not help also being the
fellow-sufferer, so deeply did he feel that he wished to share her woe
and her fears.

"Well," he said, "I was beginning to tell you why you wished to lead me
astray."

"I didn't wish to lead you astray," she cried, almost desperate lest he
should guess the truth.

"Very often," Lord Henry continued, "we can confide in a friend
concerning a blow directed at our hearts, in fact that is actually one
of the uses of friendship. But it is difficult sometimes to confess the
pain of a blow levelled at our self-esteem, at our vanity."

He looked discreetly away as he spoke, but he noticed that she stirred
at this point.

"Not only your heart and your womanly yearnings are at stake here, M