ords. Don't you understand, my grey girl?
You've got your sense of proportion all wrong. You're mine--and
nothing else on God's green earth matters."

So for a while they stood there, while he smoothed her hair with hands
that trembled a little and murmured incoherent words of love. And then
at last they died away, and he fell silent--while she looked at him
with tired eyes. The madness was past, and with almost a groan Vane
let his arms fall to his side.

"Dear man," she said, "I want you to go; I can't think when you're with
me. I've just got to worry this thing out for myself. I don't want
you to come and see me, Derek, until I send for you; I don't want you
even to write to me. I don't know how long it will take. . . . but
I'll let you know, as soon as I know myself."

For a while he argued with her--but it was useless. In the bottom of
his heart he knew it would be even as he pleaded and stormed. And,
because he recognised what lay behind her decision, he loved her all
the more for her refusal. There was a certain sweet wistfulness on her
face that tore at his heart, and at last he realised that he was
failing her, and failing her badly. It was a monstrous thing from one
point of view that such a sacrifice should be possible--but it came to
Vane with cynical abruptness that life abounds in monstrous things.

And so, very gently, he kissed her. "It shall be as you say, dear," he
said gravely. "But try not to make it too long. . . ."

At the door he stopped and looked back. She was standing as he had
left her, staring out into the darkness, and as he paused she turned
and looked at him. And her eyes were very bright with unshed
tears. . . .

Mechanically he picked up his hat and gloves, and drove back to his
rooms. He helped himself to a whisky and soda of such strength that
Binks looked at him with an apprehensive eye, and then he laughed.

"Hell, Binks," he remarked savagely--"just Hell!"

CHAPTER XIV

During the weeks that followed Vane did his best to put Joan out of his
mind. He had given her his promise not to write, and as far as in him
lay he tried his hardest not to think. A Medical Board passed him fit
for light duty, and he joined up at the regimental depot in the
cathedral city of Murchester. Once before he had been there, on a
course, before he went overseas for the first time, and the night he
arrived he could not help contrasting the two occasions. On the first
he,