The cuckoo in the passage struck seven, and Mrs. Grey came into the nursery to invite Guy to stay to dinner. All through the meal Pauline kept saying to herself 'free,' 'free,' 'free,' and afterward when her mother suggested a trio in the music-room, because they could no longer have quartets and because soon they would not even have trios, Pauline played upon her violin nothing but that word 'free,' 'free,' 'free.' In the hall when she kissed Guy good-night, she had an impulse to cling to him and pour out all her woes; but, remembering how often lately he had been the victim of her overwrought nerves, she let him go without an effort. For a little while she held the door ajar so that a thin shaft of lamplight showed his tall shape walking quickly away under the trees. Why was he walking so quickly away from her? Oh, it was raining fast, and she shut the door. Upstairs in her room she wrote to him:
Guy, you must forgive me, but I cannot bear the strain of this long engagement any more. I will go away with Miss Verney somewhere to-morrow so that you needn't hurry away from Plashers Mead before you intended. I meant to write you a long letter full of everything, but there isn't any more to say.
Pauline.
Her mother found her sobbing over her desk that was full of childish things, and asked what was the matter.
"I've broken off my engagement," and wearily she told her some of the reasons, but never any reason that might have seemed to cast the least blame on him. Next morning very early came a note for her mother from Guy in which he said he was leaving Plashers Mead in a couple of hours and begged that she would not let Pauline be the one to go away.
EPIGRAPH
Guy
GUY could not make the effort to fight the doom upon their love declared by Pauline in her letter. He felt that if he did not acquiesce he would go mad: a deadness struck at him that he fancied was a wonderful sense of relief, and hurriedly packing a few things he went in pursuit of his friend Comeragh in case it might not even now be too late to go to Persia. However, though he did not manage to be in time for Sir George Gascony, his friend secured him a job on some committee that was being organized in Macedonia by enthusiastic Liberals. His previous experience there was recommendation enough, and after he had seen his father, acquired his outfit and settled up everything at Plashers Mead by means of Maurice Avery, early in September he set out Eastward.