meant a good deal more than appeared on the surface.
I tucked it away in my memory, quite confident that sooner or later the
march of events would make it clear to me. As a matter of fact, if I
hadn't taken so much notice of that simple sentence, this story would
never have been written, for the key to everything was contained in that
casual remark.

"Nothing else has been disturbed," Bryce announced, and included the
whole room in one comprehensive gesture. "I'm going back to bed for a
couple of hours. You young people can do just what you like."

He hustled us out of the room, shut the door carefully behind us, and
went off to his room. Moira made no attempt to follow his example, but
stood in the passage with her deep golden-brown eyes fixed on me. There
was a look in them that I could not quite fathom; it whirled me back
through five years of sorrow and stress, brought me back to the days
when----. No, I wasn't going to think about it at all. It didn't bring
me back to anything; it brought nothing back to me. Yet I could not help
remarking that her eyes held solicitude for me and something that was
more than that.

"Aren't you going back to rest?" I asked, and was surprised to note that
there was both interest and defiance in my voice.

"I want to talk to you," she said, answering my question by inference.
"I want to talk seriously to you."

So it was coming at last. She intended putting Bryce's advice into
execution. Perhaps she thought it was merely a matter of telling me that
she was sorry for what had occurred, and then everything would begin
again just where it had left off. If she thought so she was radically
mistaken. My love had been rejected and I had been wounded in my pride.
Through four long years of repression the knowledge had rankled in my
mind till now the very sight of her standing there and beseeching me
with her eyes was more than I could bear. I would not have been human
had I not felt the old wound pricking me again, and I certainly would
not have been a Carstairs had the mere sight of her apparent contrition
moved me to forgive her on the spot. I was quite willing to be friendly,
I told myself, but by nothing short of a miracle could we regain the old
footing. The worst of it was that something moved me to take her in my
arms then and there and kiss away the tears that were very near her
eyes.

"I don't know what to say to you, Jim," she said tentatively.

"There's no need to say anyth