s
utterly empty. It is so still and silent outside, and the strange,
old-fashioned ideas--do you remember your story?--have been sitting
wistfully beside me while I write. Maybe I'll hear them fluttering
sadly away as I close down the envelope.

I love you, my darling, I love you. . . . I don't know why Fate should
have decreed that we should have to suffer so, though perhaps you'll
say it's my decree, not Fate's. And perhaps you're right; though to me
it seems the same thing.

Later on, when I'm a bit more used to things, we might meet. . . . I
can't think of life without ever seeing you again; and anyway, I
suppose, we're bound to run across one another. Only just at the
moment I can't think of any more exquisite torture than seeing you as
another woman's husband. . . .

Good-night, my dear, dear Love, God bless and keep you.

JOAN.

Oh! Boy--what Hell it all is, what utter Hell!

The fire was burning low in the grate as Vane laid the letter down on
the table beside him. Bolshevism, strikes, wars--of what account were
they all combined, beside the eternal problem of a man and a woman?
For a while he sat motionless staring at the dying embers, and then
with a short, bitter laugh he rose to his feet.

"It's no go, my lady," he muttered to himself. "Thank Heaven I know
the Suttons. . . ."

CHAPTER XV

Vane stepped into the train at Victoria the following afternoon, and
took his seat in the Pullman car. It was a non-stop to Lewes, and a
ticket for that place reposed in his pocket. What he was going to
do--what excuse he was going to make, he had not yet decided. Although
he knew the Suttons very well, he felt that it would look a little
strange if he suddenly walked into their house unannounced; and he had
been afraid of wiring or telephoning from London in case he should
alarm Joan. He felt vaguely that something would turn up which would
give him the excuse he needed; but in the meantime his brain was in an
incoherent condition. Only one thought rose dominantly above all the
others, and it mocked him, and laughed at him, and made him twist and
turn restlessly in his seat. Joan was going to marry Baxter. . . .
Joan was going to marry Baxter. . . .

The rattle of the wheels sang it at him; it seemed to fit in with their
rhythm, and he crushed the paper he was holding savagely in his hand.
By Heaven! she's not. . . . By Heaven! she's not. . . . Fiercely and
doggedly he answered the tau