voice faltered, broke.

"Yes, I shall go away . . . out of your life."

He fell silent a moment. Then, with an effort, he went on:

"This is good-bye. We mustn't see each other again--"

"No, no," she broke in a little wildly. "Don't go, Peter, I can't bear
it." She clung to him, repeating piteously: "Don't go . . . don't go!"

He stooped and pressed his lips to her hair, holding her in his arms.

"My dear!" he murmured. "My very dear!"

And so they remained for a little space.

Presently she lifted her face, white and strained, to his.

"_Must_ you go, Peter?"

"Heart's beloved, there is no other way. We may not love . . . and we
can't be together and not love. . . . So I must go."

She lay very still in his arms for a moment. Then he felt a long,
shuddering sigh run through her body.

"Yes," she whispered. "Yes. . . . Peter, go very quickly. . . ."

He took her face between his hands and kissed her on the mouth--not
passionately, but with the ineffably sad calmness of farewell.

"God keep you, dear," he said.

The door closed behind him, shutting him from her sight, and she stood
for a few moments staring dazedly at its wooden panels. Then, with a
sudden desperate impulse, she tore it open again and peered out.

But there was only silence--silence and emptiness. He had gone.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE DARK ANGEL

The following morning Ralph and Penelope breakfasted alone, the latter
having given orders that Nan was on no account to be disturbed. It was
rather a dreary meal. They were each oppressed by the knowledge which
last night had revealed to them--the knowledge of the tragedy of love
into which their two friends had been thrust by circumstances.

On their return from the concert at the Albert Hall they had
encountered Mallory in the vestibule of the Mansions, and the naked
misery stamped upon his face had arrested them at once.

"Peter, what is it?"

The question had sped involuntarily from Penelope's lips as she met his
blank, unseeing gaze. The sound of her voice seemed to bring him back
to recognition.

"Go to Nan!" he said in queer, clipped tones. "She'll need you. Go at
once!"

And from a Nan whose high courage had at last bent beneath the storm,
leaving her spent and unresisting, Penelope had learned the whole
unhappy truth.

Since breakfast the Fentons had been dejectedly discussing the matter
together.

"Why doesn't she break off this miserable engagemen