is shoulder as Tyson crossed Trafalgar
Square with the bold swinging step of a free man. He was still cutting
the air.

The packing was the worst of it. It had to be done in silence and a
guilty secrecy, for Molly was in bed again, suffering from a sort of
nervous relapse. Up to the last day Tyson was wretched, haunted by the
fear of some unforeseen calamity that might still happen and destroy his
plans. By way of guarding against it he had stuck the Steamship Company's
labels on all his luggage long ago. That seemed to make his decision
irrevocable whatever happened. But he would not be safe till he felt
water under him.

At the last minute Molly took a feverish turn, and was on no account to
be agitated. If he must go it would be better not to say Good-bye. Oh,
much better.

He went into her room. She was drowsy. Her small forehead was furrowed
with much thinking; there was a deep flush on her cheek, and her breath
came and went like sighing. He stooped over her and whispered
"Goodnight," the same as any other night. No, not quite the same, for
Molly started and trembled. He had kissed not her hands only, but her
mouth and her face.

His ship sailed at midnight, and he sailed with it. She had not stood in
his way, the little thing. When, indeed, had she ever hindered him?

Towards midnight Mrs. Wilcox and the servants were startled from
their sleep by hearing Mrs. Nevill Tyson calling "Nevill, Nevill!" They
hurried to her room; her bed was empty; the clothes were all rumpled
back as if flung off suddenly. They looked into the charred, dismantled
drawing-room, she was not there; but the door of communication, always
kept shut at night, was ajar. She must have gone through into the
dining-room. They found her there, stretched across the couch,
unconscious. The cord that had held Nevill's sword to the nail above was
lying on the floor where she had found it. She had divined his destiny.

The next day she was slightly delirious. The doctors and nurses came and
went softly, and Mrs. Wilcox brooded over the sick-room like a vast hope.
They listened now and then. She was talking about the baby, the baby that
died two years ago.

"It's very strange," said Mrs. Wilcox, "she never took much notice of the
little thing when it was alive."

The doctor said nothing to that; but he asked whether her father had
not died of consumption. He certainly had; but nobody had ever been
afraid for Molly; her lungs were always partic