"Yes, go to her. I think mothers must understand--as other people can't
ever understand. She will be glad to have you with her, Antoine."

He was silent for a moment, his eyes dwelling on her face as though
he sought to learn each line of it, so that when she would be no more
beside him he might carry the memory of it in his heart for ever.

"Then it is good-bye," he said at last.

Magda held out her hands and, taking them in his, he drew her close to
him.

"I love you," he said, "and I have brought you only pain." There was a
tragic simplicity in the statement.

"No," she answered steadily. "Never think that. I spoiled my own life.
And--love is a big gift, Antoine."

She lifted her face to his and very tenderly, almost reverently, he
kissed her. She knew that in that last kiss there was no disloyalty to
Michael. It held renunciation. It accepted forgiveness.

"Did you know that Dan Storran was in front to-night?" asked Gillian,
as half an hour later she and Magda were driving back to Hampstead
together. She had already confided the fact of her former meeting with
him in the tea-shop.

Magda's eyes widened a little.

"No," she said quietly. "I think I'm glad I didn't know."

She was very silent throughout the remainder of the drive home and
Gillian made no effort to distract her. She herself felt disinclined to
talk. She was oppressed by the knowledge that this was the last night
she and Magda would have with each other. To-morrow Magda would be gone
and one chapter of their lives together ended. The gates of the Sisters
of Penitence would close upon her and Friars' Holm would be empty of her
presence.

Everything had been said that could be said, every persuasion used. But
to each and all Magda had only answered: "I know it's the only thing for
me to do. It probably wouldn't be for you, or for anyone else. But it is
for me. So you must let me go, Gillyflower."

Gillian dreaded the morrow with its inevitable moment of farewell. As
for Virginie, she had done little else but weep for the last three days,
and although Lady Arabella had said very little, she had kissed her
god-daughter good-bye with a brusqueness that veiled an inexpressible
grief and tenderness. Gillian foresaw that betwixt administering comfort
to Lady Arabella and Virginie, and setting Magda's personal affairs in
order after her departure, she would have little time for the indulgence
of her own individual sorrow. Perhaps it was just