u ask," he said abruptly.

Gillian opened her lips to speak, but no words came. Instead, a sudden
lump rose in her throat, choking her into silence, at the sight of the
man's wrung face, with its bitter, pain-ridden eyes and the jaw that
was squared implacably against love and forgiveness, and against his own
overwhelming desire.

CHAPTER XXV

"CHILDREN STUMBLING IN THE DARK"

As Gillian mingled once more with the throng on the pavements she felt
curiously unwilling to return home. She had set out from Friars' Holm
so full of hope in her errand! It had seemed impossible that she could
fail, and she had been almost unconsciously looking forward to seeing
Magda's wan, strained face relax into half-incredulous delight as she
confided in her the news that Michael was as eager and longing for a
reconciliation as she herself.

And instead--this! This utter, hopeless failure to move him one jot.
Only the memory of the man's stern, desperately unhappy eyes curbed the
hot tide of her anger against him for his iron refusal.

He still loved Magda, so he said. And, indeed, Gillian believed
it. But--love! It was not love as she and Tony Grey had understood
it--simple, forgiving, and wholly trustful. It seemed to her as
though Michael and Magda were both wandering in a dim twilight of
misunderstanding, neither of them able to see that there was only one
thing for them to do if they were ever to find happiness again. They
must thrust the past behind them--with all its bitterness and failures
and mistakes, and go forward, hand in hand, in search of the light. Love
would surely lead them to it eventually.

Yet this was the last thing either of them seemed able to think of
doing. Magda was determined to spend the sweetness of her youth in
making reparation for the past, while Michael was torn by bitterly
conflicting feelings--his passionate love for Magda warring with his
innate recoil from all that she had done and with his loyalty to his
dead sister.

Gillian sighed as she threaded her way slowly along the crowded street.
The lights of a well-known tea-shop beckoned invitingly and, only too
willing to postpone the moment of her return home, she turned in between
its plate-glass doors.

They swung together behind her, dulling the rumble of the traffic, while
all around uprose the gay hum of conversation and the chink of cups and
saucers mingling with the rhythmic melodies that issued from a cleverly
concealed orchestra.