“We tried to pretend it was only one of Jack’s little jokes,” explained Greyson as he folded up the cutting; “but it wouldn’t work. It was too near the truth.” But it was her Gethsemane: the best that Fate had been able to do for her. It was here that her choice would be made. She felt that.!

“I know he’ll come back,” he said. “I won’t tell you why I am so sure. Perhaps you wouldn’t believe.” He was still holding her hands, looking into her eyes. “How are you?” she added, holding out her hand. “You’ve grown quite good-looking. I like your moustache.” And he flushed again with pleasure.

The stars came out before they had ended dinner. She had made him talk about himself. It was marvellous what he had accomplished with his opportunities. Ten hours a day in the mines had earned for him his living, and the night had given him his leisure. An attic, lighted by a tallow candle, with a shelf of books that left him hardly enough for bread, had been his Alma Mater. History was his chief study. There was hardly an authority Joan could think of with which he was not familiar. Julius Caesar was his favourite play. He seemed to know it by heart. At twenty-three he had been elected a delegate, and had entered Parliament at twenty-eight. It had been a life of hardship, of privation, of constant strain; but she found herself unable to pity him. It was a tale of strength, of struggle, of victory, that he told her. “I so love making them,” she said. “I say to myself, ‘It will all come right. God will send more and more of His Christ babies; till at last there will be thousands and thousands of them everywhere; and their love will change the world!’” “Don’t come with me,” she said. “There’s a cab stand in the Avenue. I shall walk to Sèvres and take the train.”