second she hesitated, inarticulate.
Then she leaned over and set her cheek against his.

The next instant she was gone.

* * * * *

Patch turned the corner of danger just before cock crow.

With his heart singing, Lyveden went for a walk. He chose the old
way--the way he had trod so often with Patch by his side and Valerie in
his heart. My lady had filled his cup. The knowledge that Patch would
live had set it brimming. He saw the dawn up and felt jubilant. He
found new beauties of Nature at every step. His sympathy with my lady
was a thing detached. It could not cloud his happiness. Eaton Square
was forgotten. There were only she and he and Patch in all the
world....

He came to _The Leather Bottel_, borrowed a razor of an old groom, and
presently took a bath under a pump. Later he sat long over a joyous
breakfast.

When he came back to the Home, there was Valerie. She just ran to meet
him.

"I'm so glad, I'm so glad," she said. Then her lip quivered, and she
turned away.

Anthony's heart smote him for his late selfishness. For as good cause
to congratulate her, he would have given anything.

They went up to Town together by the same train.

The feverish haste with which she climbed into "a third" was almost
comical.

Arrived at the terminus, Lyveden handed her out. Since it was Sunday
morning, the station was quiet. Indeed, except for a crowd of
"theatricals"----

Anthony remembered the roses which Lord Pomfret had told him to
purchase with an unpleasant shock.

As if a switch had been turned, all the uncertainty of his future rose
up in a cold black wave. The hopelessness of their friendship stood
out brutally. The thought that he was an impostor came pelting back,
to set his ears burning and--the barrier that had stood between them
crashed again into place.

Mechanically he saw her into a cab and told the driver to go to a house
in Mayfair. Then he took off his hat.

"I hope," he said lamely, "I hope you'll get home all right."

Valerie looked at him curiously. Then she put out her hand.

"I shall never forget your kindness," she said gently.

When Anthony, some fifty minutes later, opened the front door to admit
Lord Pomfret into his father's house, he saw that his hour was come.

For a moment the youth glared at him with the eyes of a snake. Then--

"Oh, you're back, are you?" he snarled.

He entered the house, and Anthony closed the door.